Argument Against ACLU

A troubling issue for schools now is how to deal with the issue of homosexuality. The struggle for gay rights often causes heated opposition, particularly on moral grounds from members of religious groups. (Essex, 2005, p. 43) Schools have an obligation to maintain a peaceful environment free of significant disruption, while supporting students' rights of free speech. Schools should ". . . create an environment that is characterized by respect for individual views and divergent forms of expression within reasonable limits. The challenge seems to involve achieving a reasonable balance between an orderly educational environment and respect for the free speech rights of students. Precisely, where do they draw the line?" (Essex, 2005, p. 44)

On January 3rd, 1966 the district school board voted 5-2 to uphold the principles’ bans. Upon the school’s boards decision to uphold the principles ruling, a lawsuit was filed for both the Tinker and Eckhardt family, with the assistance of the ACLU. The ACLU is the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACUL is a non-profit organization whose goal is “to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States”. With the help of the ACLU, the students sued the school district through their parents for “violating the students’ right of expression and demanded a ruling to prevent the school from disciplining the students”. This suit was filed on March 14,

This document supports limiting online student speech because the court ruled that even though it happened out of school, the school’s reason was strong enough to justify their actions toward K.K.

Schools all over are punishing kids for online comments. So how do you make a fair policy about online speech. Students usually have the freedom to express themself online at home. Though under the Tinker law school have the authority to punish students if their comments or post can responsibly predict that the speech will create strong disruption in school or is hurting the rights of others.

v. Berkeley County Schools (Document C). K.K., who formed a discussion group online that accused a classmate of being sexually promiscuous and was joined by more than 20 other classmates, was suspended from school for 10 days and issued a 90-day “social suspension.” On July 27, 2011, the US Court of Appeals ruled that the punishment was just, stating that the “[connection] of K.K’s speech to [the high school’s teaching] interests was sufficiently strong,” and that school officials are “trustees of the student body’s well-being.” When a speech disrupts the interests of the school – that is, teaching and protecting its students, it is then not protected by the First Amendment, and schools should punish its speaker. Even though the speech was off-campus, the sufficient connection of the speech to the interests of the school means that the school has the right to punish the

They stated that, “the constitutional rights of students in public school are not automatically coextensive with the rights of adults in other settings.” In that quote, the people were basically saying that because they’re in high school, their rights for speech do not really matter because they’re not adults yet. In reality, there should not be a difference in what students can express in school, and what an adult can express. The students should not be limited to what their beliefs and interests are. They should be able to express themselves without permission from the school

First off, limiting students’ online speech is unconstitutional. The first amendment clearly states, “Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech…” Which says that, for the most part, we can say whatever we want. In Gitlow v. New York the Supreme Court decided that first amendment applies to other levels of government, including public schools. What all this amounts too is that public schools are required by the constitution to protect their students’ freedom of speech. So, if a school was to limit any student’s online speech, the school is entirely abridging his/her rights.

ACLU is the American Civil Liberties Unit. This group, started from a small group of visionaries into the nation’s original supporter of the rights preserved in the U.S. Constitution. The American Civil Liberties Unit to this present day still progresses to battle the corruption of the government and to forcefully support every individual's freedoms including citizens’ rights to privacy, religion, a woman’s right to choose, speech, and so much more.It's difficult to imagine America without the ACLU because they stand up to beliefs they don’t agree with to make everyone happy and to choose what they thinks truly right to make a better

Constitutional issues in this case are the student is not given his First Amendment rights and also the Due Process a Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The right to freedom of speech and due process are both laws that anyone should be following and anyone making a decision toward a case needs to consider these because they are apart of the amendments and rights to the people. However, in this case they ruled that Bethel High School was not wrong and didn't take away his

He could say whatever he wanted and that would be protected. But the school could also punish him how they saw fit. They also ruled that his due process rights had not been violated because he had no way of knowing whether or not he would be getting in trouble for his actions due to the school's code of conduct not needing to be as detailed as a criminal code of conduct. I believe that in this instance they made the right decision due to the fact that their reasoning makes sense. The first amendment gives citizens the right to say what they wish and have any opinion that they wish. It does not say that it will protect us from the punishments we may receive by voicing these opinions in an inappropriate way. As for his due process rights, he really had no way of knowing what course the school would take in punishing him, therefore no due process rights could be applied because the code of conduct at the school was not detailed enough for it to work in that

The First Amendment gives us the right to free speech and religious practices. The Westboro Baptist Church has been the center of attention and protest for a long period of time based on so many things. For example they will protest at gay people’s funerals and the example above protesting at a military funeral. I don’t think that they should be able to protest at private events such a military funerals and personal matters in general no matter if it may be their rights or not. Unfortunately it has been ruled that they are able to protest freely and are protected because of their constitutional rights. It is great that these people can protest and say whatever they may feel but I do think there should be some type of restriction as to where

The school principal deemed that the articles were inappropriate for the audience and eliminated their publications. The students sued, saying the principal violated their First Amendment right.

A group of student created “The Spectrum” and 2 pages of “The Spectrum” contain stories of of divorce and teen pregnancy. These stories were controversial because not everyone had the same opinion about them. Especially the principal who thought the 2 pages of the newspaper was inappropriate so he censored them. This caused outraged because the student thought that the principal’s action violated the 1st Amendment which is their freedom

The subject of student rights has caused a lot of confusion and anger for decades now. There are two different sides that everyone seems to fall into. Some people want the constitutional rights of students to be fully protected within the school. The other side believes that, as a public institution, schools should regulate what is said or done by students to protect everyone involved. This is where it gets confusing, because it is hard to draw the line between what is allowed or not. The three most interesting topics that I chose to cover are a student’s right to free speech, religion within the school and student privacy.