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CHAPTER 9: Legal Aspects of Education
Overview 9.2 Selected US Supreme Court Decisions Affecting Students’ Rights and Responsibilities Case
Summary of Decision
Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969)
Students are free to express their views except when conduct disrupts classwork, causes disorder, or invades the rights of others.
Goss v. Lopez (1975)
Suspension from school requires some form of due process for students.
Ingraham v. Wright (1977)
Corporal punishment is not cruel or unusual punishment and is permitted where allowed by state law.
New Jersey v. T.L.O. (1985)
To be constitutional, searches of students and students’ property must meet a two-pronged test.
Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser (1986)
Schools need not permit offensive or disruptive speech.
Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier (1988)
A school newspaper is not a public forum and can be regulated by school officials.
Honig v. Doe (1988)
Disabled students who are disruptive must be retained in their current placement until official hearings are completed.
Gebser v. Lago Vista Independent School District (1998)
School districts are not legally at fault when a teacher sexually harasses a student unless the school acted with “deliberate indifference” in failing to stop it.
(see Chapter 8 Financing Public Education) and other school choice arrangements (discussed in Chapter 16, School Effectiveness and Reform in the United States) that provide public funds for students who are attending nonpublic schools has begun to blur this distinction.
9-3a Freedom of Expression In 1965, John Tinker, age 15, his sister Mary Beth, age 13, and their friend, Dennis Eckhardt, age 16, were part of a small group planning to wear black armbands to school as a silent, symbolic protest against the war in Vietnam. Hearing of this plan and fearing problems, administrators responded by adopting a policy prohibiting the wearing of armbands; the penalty was suspension until the armbands were removed. The Tinkers and Eckhardt wore the armbands as planned, refused to remove them, and were suspended. Their parents filed suit. In finding for the plaintiffs, the US Supreme Court outlined the scope of student rights, so that this case, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, became the standard for examining students’ freedom of speech guarantees.26 To justify prohibition of a particular expression of opinion, the Court ruled, school officials must be able to show that their actions were caused by “something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint.” Student conduct that “materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others” could be
26 Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 US 503 (1969). See also Benjamin Dowling-Sendor, “The Boundaries of Law,” American School Board Journal (March 2005); Robert M. O’Neil, “Legal Issues in the Protection of Student Freedoms,” Social Education (November/December 2010), pp. 322–325; Scott L. Sternberg, “Outside the Schoolhouse Gate,” Communications Lawyer (September 2014), available at www.americanbar.org; and “Obscenity Case Files,” 2015 posting by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, available at www .cbldf.org.
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