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First Amendment rights in schools
Impact of first amendment on education
Impact of first amendment on education
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Student’s Rights and Responsibilities: Board of Education v. Foster The case under review involves Bill Foster, who attends a large high school in the northeastern part of the United States. Due to a strong gang presence in the high school, the administrators created a strict policy which denies students the wearing of earrings, jewelry, athletic caps, and emblems. Foster was suspended for wearing an earring to school. He claims that wearing the earring was a form of his self expression and individuality; his intention was not as a gang emblem, but rather a means to attract girls. Foster is suing the school district for violation of his freedom of expression right, guaranteed under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. …show more content…
Caney Independent School District. Much like Foster’s school, David Chalifoux’s school banned the wearing of rosaries due to gang related symbolism. David Chalifoux and Jerry Robertson were both placed on academic suspension for wearing rosaries to school. In that case, the school district was unable to show sufficient evidence that the wearing of rosaries was predominately gang related. David Hittner, US District Judge, wrote: “surely there are a number of more effective means available to [the school district], other than a blanket ban on wearing rosaries, to control gang activity and ensure the safety of its schools” (Hudson Jr., D., 2015). Likewise, Foster’s defense reasons, the school’s blanket ban on the wearing of earrings is in direct violation of Foster’s constitutionally protected freedom of …show more content…
Fraser (1986). During a student assembly, Senior, Matthew Fraser gave a campaign speech to elect his friend to student government. Fraser’s speech was rife with sexual innuendo. Consequently he was suspended and his name removed from the list of possible graduation speakers—he was second in his class at the time. In this case, the Court established that there is a monumental difference between the First Amendment protection of expression for “dealing with a major issue of public policy and the lewdness of Fraser’s speech” (“Key Supreme Court Cases,” 2015). Comparatively, Foster’s high school points out that there is a monumental difference between Foster’s desire to express his individuality and impress girls, and the school’s desire to regulate the serious public concern of gang activity within the school. Indeed, in the petitioner’s application of Tinkering and Chalifoux court cases, the defense notes, in both First Amendment cases the students were addressing a major public issue—political and religion statements. Foster’s message of individuality, however, decidedly lacked a message that would safeguard his First Amendment
Matthew's father appealed the school district's actions on behalf of his son to the federal district court. He alleged a violation of his First Amendment right to freedom of speech and sought both injunctive relief and monetary damages. The District Court held that the school's sanctions violated respondent's right to freedom of speech under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, that the school's disruptive-conduct rule is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad, and that the removal of respondent's name from the graduation speaker's list violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because the disciplinary rule makes no mention of such removal as a possible sanction.
Board of Education v. Pico is a Supreme Court case that was argued from March 2, 1892 to June 25, 1982 (Island Trees…). This case presents the issue of banning “vulgar and immoral” books from school libraries (Board of Education, Island).
Justice Hugo Black dissented and feared that the Court’s ruling would cause more revolutionary actions from students. However, Justice Fortas addressed this potential outcome. He says, “Certainly where there is no finding and no showing that engaging in the forbidden conduct would "materially and substantially interfere with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school," the prohibition cannot be sustained.Burnside v. Byars, supra at 749.” The school’s ban of the armbands could not be upheld because the expression had not caused any harm. If the students underwent another expression, the school would still have the power to make a decision. If their actions were disruptive, the school would still have the power to limit these actions. The students’ rights are still protected, and the school still has the authority to operate the
Jackson vs. Birmingham Board of Education (2005) is a more recent case that still fights against one of history?s most common topics; equal rights. This will always stand as one of the greatest problem factors the world will face until eternity. These issues date back for years and years. This case was brought to the Supreme Court in 2004 for a well-known topic of sexual discrimination. It helped to define the importance of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972
This case involved a public high school student, Matthew Fraser who gave a speech nominating another student for a student elective office. The speech was given at an assembly during school as a part of a school-sponsored educational program in self-government. While giving the speech, Fraser referred to his candidate in what the school board called "elaborate, graphic, and explicit metaphor." After his speech, the assistant principal told Fraser that the school considered the speech a violation of the school's "disruptive-conduct rule." This prohibited conduct that interfered with the educational process, including obscene, profane language or gestures. After Fraser admitted he intentionally had used sexual innuendo in the speech, he was told that he would be suspended from school for three days, and his name would be removed from the list of the speakers at the graduation exercises.
Mary Beth Tinker was only thirteen years old in December of 1964 when she and four other students were suspended from school because they wore black armbands. The black armbands were a sign of protest against the Vietnam War. The school suspended the students and told them that they could not return to school until they agreed to take off the armbands. The students did not return to school until after the school’s Christmas break, and they wore black the rest of the year, as a sign of protest. The Tinker family, along with other supporters, did not think that the suspension was constitutional and sued the Des Moines Independent Community School District. The Supreme Court’s majority decision was a 7-2 vote that the suspension was unconstitutional (Tinker V. Des Moines).
Furthermore, the opinion of the Supreme Court reveled that students can express their opinions anywhere even when the principal clearly made a rule banning armbands so problems would not be created. The disruptions from armbands could ca...
In a bigger picture, students don’t come to school for a fashion show they come to school for an education. Somewhere along the line some students and parents have forgotten that simple fact. In some districts, like Wilson County Schools, the dress code violations got so out of hand that administration had to threaten suspensions, “During the first six days of the policy change 184 high school students were suspended.” (Creech, 1). The Lima Senior High School campus made the same decision as the Wilson County Schools. On Tuesday January 27, 2009, the Lima City Schools suspended about 164 students for dress code violations. They both knew that their students were having problems following the rules, and since the punishments that were set didn’t affect the students they did the one thing that got the students attention.
Last summer, my then twelve year old son was asked to participate in the National Junior Leaders Conference in Washington, DC. So, I packed our stuff and we headed for our nation's capital. While there, we visited the Supreme Court and my son, never having been there before, was simply awed. A short time later, we went to the Library of Congress. At the time (I don't know whether or not it's still there), there was a display -- three or four rooms big dedicated to the Supreme Court case Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. While the case was something that Nicholas (my son) and I had talked about on a few occasions, it was interesting to watch him as he navigated through the rooms that had photographs, court documents, newspaper articles, and other memorabilia of the case and the people involved with it. About thirty minutes into our time there, he started to cry softly, but he continued making his way through the display. He went to every single display in those several rooms; he didn't want to leave until he had seen everything and read everything. When we finally left (almost four hours after we arrived), he said to me, "It's disgraceful the way our country treated black people; there was no honor in any of it."
"Protecting Freedom of Expression on the Campus” by Derek Bok, published in Boston Globe in 1991, is an essay about what we should do when we are faced with expressions that are offensive to some people. The author discusses that although the First Amendment may protect our speech, but that does not mean it protects our speech if we use it immorally and inappropriately. The author claims that when people do things such as hanging the Confederate flag, “they would upset many fellow students and ignore the decent regard for the feelings of others” (70). The author discusses how this issue has approached Supreme Court and how the Supreme Court backs up the First Amendment and if it offends any groups, it does not affect the fact that everyone has his or her own freedom of speech. The author discusses how censorship may not be the way to go, because it might bring unwanted attention that would only make more devastating situations. The author believes the best solutions to these kind of situations would be to
The case of brown v. board of education was one of the biggest turning points for African Americans to becoming accepted into white society at the time. Brown vs. Board of education to this day remains one of, if not the most important cases that African Americans have brought to the surface for the better of the United States. Brown v. Board of Education was not simply about children and education (Silent Covenants pg 11); it was about being equal in a society that claims African Americans were treated equal, when in fact they were definitely not. This case was the starting point for many Americans to realize that separate but equal did not work. The separate but equal label did not make sense either, the circumstances were clearly not separate but equal. Brown v. Board of Education brought this out, this case was the reason that blacks and whites no longer have separate restrooms and water fountains, this was the case that truly destroyed the saying separate but equal, Brown vs. Board of education truly made everyone equal.
However, laws that are of general applicability must too be scrutinized to determine whether they are least restrictive as possible and whether the state has a compelling interest. South Fork Consolidated School District has seen a spike in gang related crimes in their schools, so in order to curb this violence they implemented a dress code policy to stop gang affiliated students from flaunting their colors and harming “guilty” students who did nothing but wear clothing that led to attacks from gang members. While the state does have a compelling interest in preventing gang violence and insuring student safety, this law is not indeed narrowly tailored to this issue. An across the board dress code policy inadvertently hurts students who wear certain articles of clothing in compliance with their faith. South Fork Consolidated School District failed to recognize that allowing exemptions for religious purposes would not compromise the state’s interest in discouraging gang activity.
In this case, the court ruled that the administrators of schools can edit the content of school newspapers. This court case is just one of the many examples of how the schools are able to sway and control what their students say and what they see, which makes a big impact on the First Amendment rights of all the students who read and who have to write the newspaper. Another case that supports the research question is Bethel School District #43 v. Fraser, 1987. This case specifically points out that students do not have the rights to make obscene speeches in school.
On the seventeenth day in May 1954 a decision was made which changed things in the United States dramatically. For millions of black Americans, news of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education meant, at last, that they and their children no longer had to attend separate schools. Brown v. Board of Education was a Supreme Court ruling that changed the life of every American forever.
. MIDDLETON SCHOOL DISTRICT FAILED TO PROVE ITS INTEREST SINCE NO EVIDENCE SHOWED THAT ANY INTERNAL DISRUTION HAD EFFECTED THE MR. JACKSON’SS DAILY DUTY PERFORMANCE.