The Tinker Case at 50.

[lucas80]

I was listening to River To River on IPR and they had Mary Beth Tinker on. Unfortunately the connection was lost early, but 50 years later the actions of John Tinker, Mary Beth, and a few other kids in a public school in Iowa are causing reverberations all across the US.

 

[cigaretteman]

For those of you not familiar with the case, it's another reason for Iowans to be proud:

Mary Beth Tinker was a 13-year-old junior high school student in December 1965 when she and a group of students decided to wear black armbands to school to protest the war in Vietnam. The school board got wind of the protest and passed a preemptive ban. When Mary Beth arrived at school on December 16, she was asked to remove the armband. When she refused, she was sent home.

Four other students were suspended, including her brother John Tinker and Chris Eckhardt. The students were told they could not return to school until they agreed to remove their armbands. The students returned to school after the Christmas break without armbands, but in protest wore black clothing for the remainder of the school year.

Represented by the ACLU, the students and their families embarked on a four-year court battle that culminated in the landmark Supreme Court decision: Tinker v. Des Moines. On February 24, 1969 the Court ruled 7-2 that students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."

The Court ruled that the First Amendment applied to public schools, and school officials could not censor student speech unless it disrupted the educational process. Because wearing a black armband was not disruptive, the Court held that the First Amendment protected the right of students to wear one. Read the Court's opinion

SINCE THEN
Tinker remains a frequently-cited Court precedent. In Morse v. Frederick, the Supreme Court will decide whether Tinker remains good law, and whether the First Amendment continues to protect the right of students to express controversial views that are not disruptive but may disagree with official school policy.

On Morse v. Frederick:

"With that slogan, he's proven once and for all that teens, with their creativity, curiosity and (to some), outrageous sense of humor, are naturals when it comes to holding the First Amendment to the test of time, even in these times." - Mary Beth Tinker

Mary Beth Tinker continues to educate young people about their rights, speaking frequently to student groups across the country. She is also active in directing the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project at American University, which mobilizes law students to teach courses on constitutional law and juvenile justice at public schools. Tinker is a registered nurse, an active leader in her union, and holds masters degrees in public health and nursing. In 2006, as a tribute to Tinker's devotion to the rights of young people, the ACLU National Board of Directors' Youth Affairs Committee renamed its annual youth affairs award, the "Mary Beth Tinker Youth Involvement Award."

https://www.aclu.org/tinker-v-des-m...?redirect=tinker-v-des-moines-393-us-503-1969

 

[Tom Paris]

For those of you not familiar with the case, it's another reason for Iowans to be proud:

Mary Beth Tinker was a 13-year-old junior high school student in December 1965 when she and a group of students decided to wear black armbands to school to protest the war in Vietnam. The school board got wind of the protest and passed a preemptive ban. When Mary Beth arrived at school on December 16, she was asked to remove the armband. When she refused, she was sent home.

Four other students were suspended, including her brother John Tinker and Chris Eckhardt. The students were told they could not return to school until they agreed to remove their armbands. The students returned to school after the Christmas break without armbands, but in protest wore black clothing for the remainder of the school year.

Represented by the ACLU, the students and their families embarked on a four-year court battle that culminated in the landmark Supreme Court decision: Tinker v. Des Moines. On February 24, 1969 the Court ruled 7-2 that students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."

The Court ruled that the First Amendment applied to public schools, and school officials could not censor student speech unless it disrupted the educational process. Because wearing a black armband was not disruptive, the Court held that the First Amendment protected the right of students to wear one. Read the Court's opinion

SINCE THEN
Tinker remains a frequently-cited Court precedent. In Morse v. Frederick, the Supreme Court will decide whether Tinker remains good law, and whether the First Amendment continues to protect the right of students to express controversial views that are not disruptive but may disagree with official school policy.

On Morse v. Frederick:

"With that slogan, he's proven once and for all that teens, with their creativity, curiosity and (to some), outrageous sense of humor, are naturals when it comes to holding the First Amendment to the test of time, even in these times." - Mary Beth Tinker

Mary Beth Tinker continues to educate young people about their rights, speaking frequently to student groups across the country. She is also active in directing the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project at American University, which mobilizes law students to teach courses on constitutional law and juvenile justice at public schools. Tinker is a registered nurse, an active leader in her union, and holds masters degrees in public health and nursing. In 2006, as a tribute to Tinker's devotion to the rights of young people, the ACLU National Board of Directors' Youth Affairs Committee renamed its annual youth affairs award, the "Mary Beth Tinker Youth Involvement Award."

https://www.aclu.org/tinker-v-des-m...?redirect=tinker-v-des-moines-393-us-503-1969

Troublemaker.

 

[The Tradition]

And yet, schools all over the country are moving toward mandatory uniforms to remove all vestiges of individuality from students because "someone might have nicer clothes than someone else and that would hurt people's feelings."

 

[ottumwan in tx]

Why don't they talk about this in iowa schools?

 

[Lone Clone]

I met John at a party once. CSB.

Famous and important case, but the implications are often misstated and exaggerated by lefties, who seem to think it gave students the power to do and say anything at any time for any reason.

 

[AughtSixHawk]

Why don't they talk about this in iowa schools?

We certainly studied this in Illinois when I was in high school. The case was presented as that of a valiant youngster and her family fighting for Constitutional rights as a matter of principle.

I'm not so persuaded all these years later that the full breadth of First Amendment protections for student speech should extend past the schoolhouse door. Much like other areas of American life where free speech has been traditionally limited for practical concerns (the military, prison, etc.), I think I would have been with the dissent in this matter.

Troublemaker.

 

[dbq hawk 32]

And yet, schools all over the country are moving toward mandatory uniforms to remove all vestiges of individuality from students because "someone might have nicer clothes than someone else and that would hurt people's feelings."

I'm a public school teacher in favor of school uniforms, and for none of those reasons.

 

[theIowaHawk]

Troublemaker.

You're goddamn right.

Well done ms. Tinker.

 

[theIowaHawk]

We certainly studied this in Illinois when I was in high school. The case was presented as that of a valiant youngster and her family fighting for Constitutional rights as a matter of principle.

I'm not so persuaded all these years later that the full breadth of First Amendment protections for student speech should extend past the schoolhouse door. Much like other areas of American life where free speech has been traditionally limited for practical concerns (the military, prison, etc.), I think I would have been with the dissent in this matter.

Troublemaker.

Always glad to read the opinion of people who compare adolescent education to the military and prison.

 

[theIowaHawk]

I met John at a party once. CSB.

Famous and important case, but the implications are often misstated and exaggerated by lefties, who seem to think it gave students the power to do and say anything at any time for any reason.

Sad that freedom of speech and expression is a partisan issue.

 

[naturalmwa]

Why don't they talk about this in iowa schools?

Why do you think they don't? Interestingly enough, another court case gave schools the right to censor student publications. The Iowa legislature turn around and passed protections for student journalists based on Tinker. Iowa is a damn sexy place to live. What are the protections down in Texas or the other states represented here?

 

[St. Louis Hawk]

Tinker is an important case, but another Iowa case -- the "good Christian burial" case of Pamela Powers -- is more important in the grand scheme.

 

[Cheer_for_the_Hawks!]

Of course, a lot of Tinker was undercut by Hazelwood in 1988....

 

[theIowaHawk]

Tinker is an important case, but another Iowa case -- the "good Christian burial" case of Pamela Powers -- is more important in the grand scheme.

Maybe, but for extremely different reasons maybe.

What doozy, two trips to the SCOTUS, sad facts, two very different but important conclusions still in use today.

 

[Lone Clone]

Of course, a lot of Tinker was undercut by Hazelwood in 1988....

No, it wasn't. The Tinker case didn't apply to the Hazelwood case. Which is an example of precisely what I wrote earlier about people exaggerating the impact of Tinker.

Hazelwood was troubling for one reason: It was 6-3 instead of unanimous. It's frightening to realize three members of the highest court in the land didn't grasp one of the most basic aspects of the First Amendment.

And I say that as a recovering journalist who has -- despite my views on some other topics -- an extremely liberal/broad view of the First Amendment.

 

[Lone Clone]

Why do you think they don't? Interestingly enough, another court case gave schools the right to censor student publications. The Iowa legislature turn around and passed protections for student journalists based on Tinker. Iowa is a damn sexy place to live. What are the protections down in Texas or the other states represented here?

The Iowa Legislature was idiotic to pass that law. And you have mischaracterized it.

The case you are talking about was Hazelwood East (a St. Louis suburban high school). It wasn't about censoring a student publication. It was about supervising a school publication. Huge, huge, HUGE difference.

 

[naturalmwa]

The Iowa Legislature was idiotic to pass that law. And you have mischaracterized it.

The case you are talking about was Hazelwood East (a St. Louis suburban high school). It wasn't about censoring a student publication. It was about supervising a school publication. Huge, huge, HUGE difference.

How did they want to supervise it? Wasn't it by pulling a story? In any event, I appreciate that Iowa stuck its neck out in favor of the students' right to express themselves. We might disagree that you actually possess "an extremely liberal/broad view of the First Amendment."

 

[Lone Clone]

How did they want to supervise it? Wasn't it by pulling a story? In any event, I appreciate that Iowa stuck its neck out in favor of the students' right to express themselves. We might disagree that you actually possess "an extremely liberal/broad view of the First Amendment."

If you disagree about my view of the First amendment, you are wrong.

Are we being serious here? At least by HROT standards? I'm going to assume we are, and explain the situation.

First and foremost, the question of how they wanted to supervise it goes to the heart of the issue:

It doesn't matter.

This is the mistake most people make when criticizing the decision. What happened was that the kids running the school paper (and their faculty adviser) were going to run a story about teen pregnancy and the principal put the kibosh on it. Was that a mistake? In my view, probably yes, it was. But the issue here isn't the principal. It is the principle. In other words, it isn't whether the school was correct to do what it did; it is whether the school had the authority to do what it did.

The faculty adviser commented afterward that the court seemed to think that freedom of the press only extends to the owner of the press. Well, DUH. That is exactly correct. Other critics have said that student journalists are entitled to the same rights as professional journalists; Well, DUH again. They are NOT entitled to extra rights just by virtue of not knowing what they're doing.

This is a school newspaper. The school is analogous to the publisher of a "real" newspaper. No journalist on Earth thinks the employees of, say, the Des Moines Register have a constitutional right to see their work published there if the paper's owners don't want to publish it.

There is a practical consideration here, as well. Suppose in the Hazelwood case that the story had identified a student as being promiscuous but gotten the information wrong. Who is responsible? Who is the girl's parents going to sue? Hint: It ain't the 15-year-old who wrote the story or the 16-year-old editor who approved it. The responsible party is -- as it should be -- the entity that has responsibility for what's published, and that is Hazelwood East High School.

Obviously, you cannot tell a school that it is responsible for what's in the paper but has no right to decide what's in the paper. Although that, IIRC, is what the Iowa Legislature, in its infinite wisdom, thought it was doing with the legislation.

I may be wrong about what the law says, but I think they tried to dodge the responsibility issue by making it illegal to sue a school for the content of its publication. I am not a lawyer, so I would like to see what the lawyers on the board think of this assertion. My guess is that it would be laughed out of court.

If we were talking about a student publication, rather than a school publication, then a whole different set of issues come into play. That is, if this were a paper produced by students, independent of the school, like in an old Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland movie. Then the school has no right to edit the content, and the issue becomes whether the students have the right to distribute it on school grounds, to use the school's logo, that kind of thing.

The Tinker case said a student's rights don't end when they walk into a school. Fine. What it did NOT say is that a student gains rights that nobody else by virtue of walking into a school.

 

[naturalmwa]

If you disagree about my view of the First amendment, you are wrong.

Are we being serious here? At least by HROT standards? I'm going to assume we are, and explain the situation.

First and foremost, the question of how they wanted to supervise it goes to the heart of the issue:

It doesn't matter.

This is the mistake most people make when criticizing the decision. What happened was that the kids running the school paper (and their faculty adviser) were going to run a story about teen pregnancy and the principal put the kibosh on it. Was that a mistake? In my view, probably yes, it was. But the issue here isn't the principal. It is the principle. In other words, it isn't whether the school was correct to do what it did; it is whether the school had the authority to do what it did.

The faculty adviser commented afterward that the court seemed to think that freedom of the press only extends to the owner of the press. Well, DUH. That is exactly correct. Other critics have said that student journalists are entitled to the same rights as professional journalists; Well, DUH again. They are NOT entitled to extra rights just by virtue of not knowing what they're doing.

This is a school newspaper. The school is analogous to the publisher of a "real" newspaper. No journalist on Earth thinks the employees of, say, the Des Moines Register have a constitutional right to see their work published there if the paper's owners don't want to publish it.

There is a practical consideration here, as well. Suppose in the Hazelwood case that the story had identified a student as being promiscuous but gotten the information wrong. Who is responsible? Who is the girl's parents going to sue? Hint: It ain't the 15-year-old who wrote the story or the 16-year-old editor who approved it. The responsible party is -- as it should be -- the entity that has responsibility for what's published, and that is Hazelwood East High School.

Obviously, you cannot tell a school that it is responsible for what's in the paper but has no right to decide what's in the paper. Although that, IIRC, is what the Iowa Legislature, in its infinite wisdom, thought it was doing with the legislation.

I may be wrong about what the law says, but I think they tried to dodge the responsibility issue by making it illegal to sue a school for the content of its publication. I am not a lawyer, so I would like to see what the lawyers on the board think of this assertion. My guess is that it would be laughed out of court.

If we were talking about a student publication, rather than a school publication, then a whole different set of issues come into play. That is, if this were a paper produced by students, independent of the school, like in an old Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland movie. Then the school has no right to edit the content, and the issue becomes whether the students have the right to distribute it on school grounds, to use the school's logo, that kind of thing.

The Tinker case said a student's rights don't end when they walk into a school. Fine. What it did NOT say is that a student gains rights that nobody else by virtue of walking into a school.

I'm not a lawyer either, so we may both be talking out of ignorance, but my understanding is that Tinker set a standard where schools can censor expression if it could demonstrate a substantial disruption to its educational mission. So your hypothetical of publishing wrong information would be valid under Tinker. But Tinker also said as you express that students get the same constitutional rights as exist out of the classroom. It said the newspaper is a student forum, not a school publication as you want to define it.

Hazlewood did as you suggest improper. It established that students get less first amendment protections in that anything could be censored if it simply was related to a school's educational mission without any need that the expression actually be a disruption, let alone a substantial one as Tinker provided. These aren't private schools or private newspapers we are talking about, they are public schools publishing public forms of student (not school) expression. In that light giving government officials the power to arbitrarily and broadly censor is not a liberal interpretation of the first amendment.

 

[Lone Clone]

I'm not a lawyer either, so we may both be talking out of ignorance, but my understanding is that Tinker set a standard where schools can censor expression if it could demonstrate a substantial disruption to its educational mission. So your hypothetical of publishing wrong information would be valid under Tinker. But Tinker also said as you express that students get the same constitutional rights as exist out of the classroom. It said the newspaper is a student forum, not a school publication as you want to define it.

Hazlewood did as you suggest improper. It established that students get less first amendment protections in that anything could be censored if it simply was related to a school's educational mission without any need that the expression actually be a disruption, let alone a substantial one as Tinker provided. These aren't private schools or private newspapers we are talking about, they are public schools publishing public forms of student (not school) expression. In that light giving government officials the power to arbitrarily and broadly censor is not a liberal interpretation of the first amendment.

You are missing the point, natural. Completely.

1. Yes, Tinker said students get the same rights in school as out of school. But what the losers in Hazelwood claimed was that students get ADDITIONAL rights by virtue of being in school. No newspaper employee in the world thinks he/she has the right to get things in the paper that the owner of the paper doesn't want in there.

2. Please address the libel issue. That, alone, is enough to confirm my argument.

3. Even if you swallowed the absurd idea that a school newspaper is not a newspaper, but a forum, the argument against supervision doesn't hold water. Do you, or does anyone, claim that a school doesn't have the power to regulate the conduct of students at a school-sponsored forum? I very much doubt it.

4. My assessment of the First Amendment isn't "liberal" in the sense that it's a left-wing view. It's liberal in the sense that it's pretty much absolute. I think the times when it is legitimate for government to meddle in freedom of expression are extremely limited. That's one reason I support Citizens United, and flag-burning decisions, and Tinker, for that matter. You, on the other hand, take the position that government should be able to have absolute power to regulate what is in a publication; if the principal isn't making the decision you think is correct, you want government to overrule him. You may not realize that's your position, but that's the way it looks in reality.

5. I'm going to make this point again because it's all that matters and you seem to keep missing it: The school isn't the government exercising power over a student publication. The school is the publisher of the newspaper. I trust you wouldn't deny that the school has the right to decide whether to have a school newspaper, period, as well as how often to publish it, how large it is, what ads (if any) to accept, how much the budget is, etc., etc., etc. The newspaper is a school entity. Period.

 

[pablow]

Christopher Eckhardt was a beer drinking buddy of mine in high school. He was apolitical - he just liked having a good time and is a wonderful person. He never talked about this case and it wasn't until years later I ever learned about his involvement in it or even that there was such a case.

I never met John and Mary Beth Tinker but knew of them; their older brother Leonard is a big mouth know-it-all who acts like he's the heart and soul of the case.

Now if the Supreme Court could just shut up Leonard Tinker, what a wonderful world this would be.

 

[naturalmwa]

You are missing the point, natural. Completely.

1. Yes, Tinker said students get the same rights in school as out of school. But what the losers in Hazelwood claimed was that students get ADDITIONAL rights by virtue of being in school. No newspaper employee in the world thinks he/she has the right to get things in the paper that the owner of the paper doesn't want in there.

2. Please address the libel issue. That, alone, is enough to confirm my argument.

3. Even if you swallowed the absurd idea that a school newspaper is not a newspaper, but a forum, the argument against supervision doesn't hold water. Do you, or does anyone, claim that a school doesn't have the power to regulate the conduct of students at a school-sponsored forum? I very much doubt it.

4. My assessment of the First Amendment isn't "liberal" in the sense that it's a left-wing view. It's liberal in the sense that it's pretty much absolute. I think the times when it is legitimate for government to meddle in freedom of expression are extremely limited. That's one reason I support Citizens United, and flag-burning decisions, and Tinker, for that matter. You, on the other hand, take the position that government should be able to have absolute power to regulate what is in a publication; if the principal isn't making the decision you think is correct, you want government to overrule him. You may not realize that's your position, but that's the way it looks in reality.

5. I'm going to make this point again because it's all that matters and you seem to keep missing it: The school isn't the government exercising power over a student publication. The school is the publisher of the newspaper. I trust you wouldn't deny that the school has the right to decide whether to have a school newspaper, period, as well as how often to publish it, how large it is, what ads (if any) to accept, how much the budget is, etc., etc., etc. The newspaper is a school entity. Period.

1) That's not what Hazelwood found. Hazelwood specifically countered Tinker and found that students get less rights. Look it up, you don't seem to know the findings very well.

2) I did address the libel issue already. Maybe you just missed it? Tinker already allowed for libel and any substantially disruptive expression to be regulated. The problem with Hazelwood is that it moved the bar much lower and allowed any expression to be regulated if the school could show any educational reason with no need to show a disruption.

3) Student newspaper, not school. A school newspaper would be one expressing official school positions. That's not what we are talking about here. We are talking about student expression. And its proper to describe most any medium of expression as a forum. You are missing the point that Tinker set the bar at regulating conduct too, it set the bar as substantially similar to how you regulate the rest of the non-student population and forced public officials to extend basic constitutional rights to students. Hazelwood removed those equal rights.

4) Now here you are going off the rails. Your position is authoritarian, not liberal. You are the one advocating for government power. The principal or school administration is the government in this case. You don't support Tinker or you would be against Hazelwood, they compete. Hazelwood removes the rights Tinker gave.

5) You are wrong, the school is the government exercising power over students, how could you think otherwise? We are talking about government schools and public expression in a public forum. This isn't a private enterprise.

 

[theIowaHawk]

If you disagree about my view of the First amendment, you are wrong.

Are we being serious here? At least by HROT standards? I'm going to assume we are, and explain the situation.

First and foremost, the question of how they wanted to supervise it goes to the heart of the issue:

It doesn't matter.

This is the mistake most people make when criticizing the decision. What happened was that the kids running the school paper (and their faculty adviser) were going to run a story about teen pregnancy and the principal put the kibosh on it. Was that a mistake? In my view, probably yes, it was. But the issue here isn't the principal. It is the principle. In other words, it isn't whether the school was correct to do what it did; it is whether the school had the authority to do what it did.

The faculty adviser commented afterward that the court seemed to think that freedom of the press only extends to the owner of the press. Well, DUH. That is exactly correct. Other critics have said that student journalists are entitled to the same rights as professional journalists; Well, DUH again. They are NOT entitled to extra rights just by virtue of not knowing what they're doing.

This is a school newspaper. The school is analogous to the publisher of a "real" newspaper. No journalist on Earth thinks the employees of, say, the Des Moines Register have a constitutional right to see their work published there if the paper's owners don't want to publish it.

There is a practical consideration here, as well. Suppose in the Hazelwood case that the story had identified a student as being promiscuous but gotten the information wrong. Who is responsible? Who is the girl's parents going to sue? Hint: It ain't the 15-year-old who wrote the story or the 16-year-old editor who approved it. The responsible party is -- as it should be -- the entity that has responsibility for what's published, and that is Hazelwood East High School.

Obviously, you cannot tell a school that it is responsible for what's in the paper but has no right to decide what's in the paper. Although that, IIRC, is what the Iowa Legislature, in its infinite wisdom, thought it was doing with the legislation.

I may be wrong about what the law says, but I think they tried to dodge the responsibility issue by making it illegal to sue a school for the content of its publication. I am not a lawyer, so I would like to see what the lawyers on the board think of this assertion. My guess is that it would be laughed out of court.

If we were talking about a student publication, rather than a school publication, then a whole different set of issues come into play. That is, if this were a paper produced by students, independent of the school, like in an old Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland movie. Then the school has no right to edit the content, and the issue becomes whether the students have the right to distribute it on school grounds, to use the school's logo, that kind of thing.

The Tinker case said a student's rights don't end when they walk into a school. Fine. What it did NOT say is that a student gains rights that nobody else by virtue of walking into a school.

Strange that LC thinks a governmental organization gets the same authority via the Constitution that a private (see: non-Constitutionally applicable) publisher gets.

Seems, well, weird.

 

[theIowaHawk]

1) That's not what Hazelwood found. Hazelwood specifically countered Tinker and found that students get less rights. Look it up, you don't seem to know the findings very well.

2) I did address the libel issue already. Maybe you just missed it? Tinker already allowed for libel and any substantially disruptive expression to be regulated. The problem with Hazelwood is that it moved the bar much lower and allowed any expression to be regulated if the school could show any educational reason with no need to show a disruption.

3) Student newspaper, not school. A school newspaper would be one expressing official school positions. That's not what we are talking about here. We are talking about student expression. And its proper to describe most any medium of expression as a forum. You are missing the point that Tinker set the bar at regulating conduct too, it set the bar as substantially similar to how you regulate the rest of the non-student population and forced public officials to extend basic constitutional rights to students. Hazelwood removed those equal rights.

4) Now here you are going off the rails. Your position is authoritarian, not liberal. You are the one advocating for government power. The principal or school administration is the government in this case. You don't support Tinker or you would be against Hazelwood, they compete. Hazelwood removes the rights Tinker gave.

5) You are wrong, the school is the government exercising power over students, how could you think otherwise? We are talking about government schools and public expression in a public forum. This isn't a private enterprise.

You go too far on 1-4, but 5 is apt.

 

[naturalmwa]

You go too far on 1-4, but 5 is apt.

Where do you think I went wrong?

 

[Lone Clone]

Strange that LC thinks a governmental organization gets the same authority via the Constitution that a private (see: non-Constitutionally applicable) publisher gets.

Seems, well, weird.

That's because you, like natural, are either unable to grasp the core issues here or are being argumentative just for the hell of it. Which occasionally happens on HROT.

It is natural who is arguing that government should have the authority to dictate what is and isn't published by a newspaper. I am the one claiming that the entity responsible for the publication has to have control of its contents.

I am not necessarily arguing that the school district's right to control the newspaper is guaranteed by the Constitution. But I am absolutely arguing that the Constitution does not guarantee the student employees the right to make that decision.

 

[Lone Clone]

1) That's not what Hazelwood found. Hazelwood specifically countered Tinker and found that students get less rights. Look it up, you don't seem to know the findings very well.

2) I did address the libel issue already. Maybe you just missed it? Tinker already allowed for libel and any substantially disruptive expression to be regulated. The problem with Hazelwood is that it moved the bar much lower and allowed any expression to be regulated if the school could show any educational reason with no need to show a disruption.

3) Student newspaper, not school. A school newspaper would be one expressing official school positions. That's not what we are talking about here. We are talking about student expression. And its proper to describe most any medium of expression as a forum. You are missing the point that Tinker set the bar at regulating conduct too, it set the bar as substantially similar to how you regulate the rest of the non-student population and forced public officials to extend basic constitutional rights to students. Hazelwood removed those equal rights.

4) Now here you are going off the rails. Your position is authoritarian, not liberal. You are the one advocating for government power. The principal or school administration is the government in this case. You don't support Tinker or you would be against Hazelwood, they compete. Hazelwood removes the rights Tinker gave.

5) You are wrong, the school is the government exercising power over students, how could you think otherwise? We are talking about government schools and public expression in a public forum. This isn't a private enterprise.

All these points boil down to your misinterpretation of the Constitution and the roles played by the various agents in this matter. Your #4 illustrates this perfectly. In fact, it is you who is arguing for government power. You are claiming the government has the power to dictate the content of a publication with which it has no affiliation or responsibility.

No, you didn't reply to the libel question. You dodged it. Let's put it another way. Let's say your son is a student at Hazelwood East and this story was published, and it identified your son as a student who had forced his sexual attentions on the entire cheerleading squad. Let's say you are of litigious set of mind, and you want to sue. Who do you sue?

Yes, I realize some of the Hazelwood arguments got into the question of whether something was disruptive. That's why my view of the First Amendment is much broader than yours. Under your formula, the decision on what to allow in the paper is a largely arbitrary one -- which is the way it works in real life -- but the decision on whether the government should step in is also arbitrary, which definitely is not the way it works in real life.

It is a SCHOOL newspaper, not a student newspaper. The school pays for it. The school sponsors it. The school is identified as a publisher of it. This issue goes to a different part of the First Amendment than does Tinker.

Tinker was about freedom of speech. Hazelwood is about freedom of the press. Tinker was about not allowing students to say something on school grounds that they could say elsewhere. That's nothing at all like Hazelwood, in which case the high school wasn't telling students they couldn't talk about teen pregnancy on school grounds, or wear t-shirts promoting (or opposing) some aspect of teen sex. The high school was simply saying the students couldn't do it in the school's newspaper.

Again, as I said at the outset, the only troubling thing about Hazelwood from a journalism point of view was that it was 6-3 instead of unanimous.

 

[theIowaHawk]

That's because you, like natural, are either unable to grasp the core issues here or are being argumentative just for the hell of it. Which occasionally happens on HROT.

It is natural who is arguing that government should have the authority to dictate what is and isn't published by a newspaper. I am the one claiming that the entity responsible for the publication has to have control of its contents.

I am not necessarily arguing that the school district's right to control the newspaper is guaranteed by the Constitution. But I am absolutely arguing that the Constitution does not guarantee the student employees the right to make that decision.

That entity is, in fact, government ... otherwise it wasn't a case.

 

[theIowaHawk]

Where do you think I went wrong?

Just too far. Hazelwood and Tinker are about different things, you allege that haxelwood has basically neutered Tinker, I disagree.

 

[St. Louis Hawk]

Just too far. Hazelwood and Tinker are about different things, you allege that haxelwood has basically neutered Tinker, I disagree.

Bong Hits for Jesus neutered Tinker.

 

[naturalmwa]

Just too far. Hazelwood and Tinker are about different things, you allege that haxelwood has basically neutered Tinker, I disagree.

I agree Hazelwood was more specific. But before Hazelwood, Tinker was used to define newspapers as forums of student expression and provided student journalists with protections that were stripped away with Hazelwood. Hazelwood doesn't strip away every protection of student expression gained in Tinker, but it does for newspapers and speeches at assemblies specifically, or at least that is my understanding thus far.

 

[naturalmwa]

All these points boil down to your misinterpretation of the Constitution and the roles played by the various agents in this matter. Your #4 illustrates this perfectly. In fact, it is you who is arguing for government power. You are claiming the government has the power to dictate the content of a publication with which it has no affiliation or responsibility.

No, you didn't reply to the libel question. You dodged it. Let's put it another way. Let's say your son is a student at Hazelwood East and this story was published, and it identified your son as a student who had forced his sexual attentions on the entire cheerleading squad. Let's say you are of litigious set of mind, and you want to sue. Who do you sue?

Yes, I realize some of the Hazelwood arguments got into the question of whether something was disruptive. That's why my view of the First Amendment is much broader than yours. Under your formula, the decision on what to allow in the paper is a largely arbitrary one -- which is the way it works in real life -- but the decision on whether the government should step in is also arbitrary, which definitely is not the way it works in real life.

It is a SCHOOL newspaper, not a student newspaper. The school pays for it. The school sponsors it. The school is identified as a publisher of it. This issue goes to a different part of the First Amendment than does Tinker.

Tinker was about freedom of speech. Hazelwood is about freedom of the press. Tinker was about not allowing students to say something on school grounds that they could say elsewhere. That's nothing at all like Hazelwood, in which case the high school wasn't telling students they couldn't talk about teen pregnancy on school grounds, or wear t-shirts promoting (or opposing) some aspect of teen sex. The high school was simply saying the students couldn't do it in the school's newspaper.

Again, as I said at the outset, the only troubling thing about Hazelwood from a journalism point of view was that it was 6-3 instead of unanimous.

We often disagree, but usually I can follow your line of thinking. Not this time. We both agree schools can exercise some restraint over student expression. The question is where is the line. I'm for the Tinker line that says schools can restrict what is otherwise constitutional to restrict or when there is a reasonable belief that a substantial disruption of school activities is imminent. You are for a lesser standard in Hazelwood that says a school can restrict even if the restriction is otherwise unconstitutional so long as their actions are reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns.

That's the entire argument. I'm for more restrictions on government in this case, you are for less. BTW, the case was decided 5-3, not 6-3. As I suspected, you don't know this case very well, go read up on what you are supporting.

 

[ottumwan in tx]

I should have asked why they didn't teach it in ottumwa in the 80's my social studies classes were about europe mainly from like the minute the clock started on A.D. times to ww2 then history stopped, no learning about viet nam times for young oit

 

[naturalmwa]

I should have asked why they didn't teach it in ottumwa in the 80's my social studies classes were about europe mainly from like the minute the clock started on A.D. times to ww2 then history stopped, no learning about viet nam times for young oit

Probably because schools didn't like that Tinker gave kids rights. The man was holding down.

 

[ottumwan in tx]

I swear one time in like 1977 or so we opened a text book in class and it stated the prez was jfk

 

[HotelAlphaWilcoKilo]

Famous and important case, but the implications are often misstated and exaggerated by lefties, who seem to think it gave students the power to do and say anything at any time for any reason.

Yeah, that's all I ever hear from lefties when Tinker comes up.

You dumb ****.

 

[naturalmwa]

I swear one time in like 1977 or so we opened a text book in class and it stated the prez was jfk

My school was so poor they made us share text books. We had to move our desks together and read together.

 

[ottumwan in tx]

We did too we had only that one text book.

 

[naturalmwa]

We did too we had only that one text book.

I think we had a situation like that too where the teacher would project the book on a screen for is all to read. The problem I had was they would turn off the lights so we could see the projection and I would get sleepy.