Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District

Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued November 12, 1968 Decided February 24, 1969
Full case name	John F. Tinker and Mary Beth Tinker, minors, by their father and next friend, Leonard Tinker and Christopher Eckhardt, minor, by his father and next friend, William Eckhardt v. The Des Moines Independent Community School District, et al.
Citations	393 U.S. 503 (more) 89 S. Ct. 733; 21 L. Ed. 2d 731; 1969 U.S. LEXIS 2443; 49 Ohio Op. 2d 222
Case history
Prior	Plaintiff's complaint dismissed, 258 F.Supp. 971 (S.D. Iowa 1966); affirmed, 383 F.2d 988 (8th Cir. 1967); certiorari granted, 390 U.S. 942 (1968)
Subsequent	None on record
Holding
The First Amendment, as applied through the Fourteenth, did not permit a public school to punish a student for wearing a black armband as an anti-war protest, absent any evidence that the rule was necessary to avoid substantial interference with school discipline or the rights of others. Eighth Circuit reversed and remanded.
Court membership
Chief Justice Earl Warren Associate Justices Hugo Black · William O. Douglas John M. Harlan II · William J. Brennan Jr. Potter Stewart · Byron White Abe Fortas · Thurgood Marshall
Case opinions
Majority	Fortas, joined by Warren, Douglas, Brennan, White, Marshall
Concurrence	Stewart
Concurrence	White
Dissent	Black
Dissent	Harlan
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amends. I, XIV; 42 U.S.C. § 1983

Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969) was a United States Supreme Court case that resulted in a decision defining the constitutional rights of students in U.S. public schools. The Tinker test is still used by courts today to determine whether a school's disciplinary actions violate students' First Amendment rights.

Background

In December 1965, Des Moines, Iowa residents John Tinker (15 years old) and Mary Beth Tinker (13 years old) and their friend Christopher Eckhardt (16 years old) decided to wear black armbands to their schools (high school for John and Christopher, junior high for Mary Beth) in protest of the Vietnam War. The school board apparently heard rumor of this and chose to pass a policy banning the wearing of armbands to school. Violating students would be suspended and allowed to return to school after agreeing to comply with the policy. Mary Beth Tinker and Christopher Eckhardt chose to violate this policy, and the next day John Tinker also did so. All were suspended from school until after New Years Day 1966 when their protest had been scheduled to end.

The case

Their parents, in turn, filed suit in U.S. District Court, which upheld the decision of the Des Moines school board. A tie vote in the U.S. Court of Appeals meant that the school board's decision continued to stand, and forced the Tinkers and Eckhardts to appeal to the Supreme Court directly. The case was argued before the court on November 12, 1968.

The decision

The court's 7 to 2 decision was handed down on February 24, 1969. It held that the First Amendment applied to public schools, and that administrators would have to demonstrate constitutionally valid reasons for any specific regulation of speech in the classroom. Justice Abe Fortas wrote the majority opinion, holding that the speech regulation at issue in Tinker was "based upon an urgent wish to avoid the controversy which might result from the expression, even by the silent symbol of armbands, of opposition to this Nation's part in the conflagration in Vietnam," and, finding that the actions of the Tinkers in wearing armbands did not cause disruption, held that their activity represented constitutionally protected symbolic speech.

Subsequent jurisprudence

Tinker remains a viable and frequently-cited Court precedent, though subsequent Court decisions have determined limitations on the scope of student free speech rights. In Bethel School District v. Fraser, a 1986 case, the Supreme Court held that a high school student's sexual innuendo–laden speech during a student assembly was not constitutionally protected. Fraser qualified Tinker in making an exception for "indecent" speech. Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, where the court ruled that schools have the right to regulate, for legitimate educational reasons, the content of non-forum, school-sponsored newspapers, also limits Tinker's application. The Court in Hazelwood clarified that both Fraser and Hazelwood were decided under the doctrine of Perry Education Association v. Perry Local Educators Association. Such a distinction keeps undisturbed the Material Disruption doctrine of Tinker, while deciding certain student free speech cases under the Nonpublic Forum doctrine of Perry. In Morse v. Frederick, the Court held that schools may, consistent with the First Amendment, restrict student speech at a school-sponsored event, even those events occurring off school grounds, when that speech is reasonably viewed as promoting illegal drug use.

See also

• Freedom of speech
• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 393
• Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919)
• Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973)
• Broussard v. School Board of Norfolk
• Morse v. Frederick (2007)

External links

Works related to Tinker v. Des Moines School District at Wikisource

• Tinker v. Des Moines Supreme Court opinion at FindLaw
• First Amendment Library entry on Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District
• Schema-root.org: Tinker v. Des Moines John Tinker's page about Tinker v. Des Moines. Contains a current news feed.
• Tinker v. Des Moines Ind. Comm. School Dist. Oyez.org