Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District

Tinker is one of the most important Supreme Court cases to deal with the rights of public school students in the marketplace of ideas.

In December of 1965, a group adults met at the home of Mr. and Mrs. William Eckhardt. They discussed ways to protest the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Some of their children were present, including 16-year-old Christopher Eckhardt, 15-year-old John Tinker, and 13-year-old Mary Beth Tinker. They decided to join the adults in wearing black armbands during the holiday season and to fast on 16 December and New Year's Eve. The principals of the Des Moines Public Schools became aware of this plan, and on 14 December, they jointly adopted a policy of prohibiting black armbands in their schools. Any student wearing one would be asked to remove it. If the student refused, he or she would be suspended until the armband was removed.

The Tinkers were aware that the school board had adopted this policy, but they went ahead and wore their armbands on 16 and 17 December. They were sent home, and they did not return to school until after New Year's Day, when they had originally planned to end their protest. In the meanwhile, they filed a complaint in U.S. district court, asking for an injunction preventing the school board from taking disciplinary action against them. When the district court ruled against them and an equally divided federal court of appeals upheld that decision, the Tinkers took their case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Tinkers claimed that the school board had violated their First Amendment right to freedom of expression. Writing for the Court, Justice Fortas agreed:

First Amendment rights, applied in light of the special characteristics of the school environment, are available to teachers and students. It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate . . . Statutes to this effect . . . unconstitutionally interfere with the liberty of teacher, student, and parent.

Fortas went on to emphasize the fact that the Tinkers' behavior had been in no way disruptive of other students or of the school routine. Indeed, their wearing of black armbands had been an exercise of "First Amendment rights akin to `pure speech.'"

The Tinkers were in fact engaging in symbolic political speech, the protection of which lies at the heart of the First Amendment. Fortas underscored this analysis by pointing to other instances when the school district had tolerated more conventional displays of political opinions, such as the wearing of campaign buttons. School officials had not even protested when a student showed up for classes wearing a Nazi iron cross. It was only when the Tinkers displayed their opposition to the Vietnam War--apparently an unpopular stance to assume in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1968--that the school board attempted to regulate a graphic representation of a political point of view. This reaction, the Court indicated, bore a resemblance to state censorship:

In our system, state-operated schools may not be enclaves of totalitarianism. School officials do not possess absolute authority over students . . . In our system, students may not be regarded as closed-circuit recipients of only that which the State chooses to communicate. They may not be confined to the expression of those sentiments that are officially approved.

In his three and a half years on the Court bench, Justice Fortas was known for championing the rights of juveniles in such cases as In re Gault (1967). His clear sympathy with the relative powerlessness of school children was on display in Tinker, too. In marked contrast, in his long career as a justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Black had changed from a First Amendment absolutist to a neo-conservative on social issues. His disapproval of political activism in the schoolhouse was manifest in his dissenting opinion in Tinker, in which he declared that district officials were well within their rights in controlling how their schools were run.

In subsequent opinions, the Supreme Court has vacillated between the Fortas point of view and that of Justice Black. The Court continues to place a great deal of emphasis on the school's responsibility for conveying ethics and morality. In general, however, school officials are granted more latitude to regulate student behavior connected with school-sponsored activities, such as school newspapers.

Related Cases

• Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923).
• Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925).
• Stromberg v. California, 283 U.S. 359 (1931).
• West Virginia v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943).
• Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U.S. 479 (1960).
• Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962).
• Edwards v. South Carolina, 372 U.S. 229 (1963).
• Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 536 (1965).
• Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U.S. 589 (1967).
• In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1 (1967).
• Airport Comm'rs v. Jews for Jesus, 482 U.S. 569 (1987).

Student Protests (1964-1967)

During the turbulent 1960s the civil rights movement and the largely student-led Vietnam War protests expanded the ways of communicating political messages. Traditional forms of speech and press gave way to demonstrations. Sit-ins, marches, black arm bands, draft card burning, and flag desecration graphically presented the protester's political message.

The student protest movement began in 1964 at Berkeley, California. In what became known as the Free Speech Movement, students pressed issues against an academic bureaucracy out of touch with the problems of contemporary society. Students staged sit-ins, strikes, sang folk songs, and created slogans to identify the targets of their protests. By 1965, with escalating events in Vietnam coming to the forefront, students rallied in opposition to the war. "Make Love Not War" became a new slogan. The draft system of the Selective Service was the most visible target of the government war policy spurring draft card burnings, sit-ins, and picketing of local draft boards. From 1965 to 1967 the nature of the student protests slowly changed from peaceful demonstrations to more aggressive tactics including calls for outright revolution. During this time period student activism and protests dramatically increased on college campuses nationwide.

Sources

Dougan, Clark and Samuel Lipsman. A Nation Divided: The Vietnam Experience. Boston: Boston Publishing Company, 1984.