Free Speech Rights, The Establishment Clause, And Their Incorporation Under The 14th Amendment

Constitution's First Amendment requirement that the District neither establish religion in the schools nor prohibit students’ free exercise of religion according to pertinent interpretation and application of those constitutional provisions by the courts. Any religious characters need to conform to policy 8800” (Markesan District School, 2013). “Decisions of the United States Supreme Court have made it clear that it is not the province of a public school to advance or inhibit religious beliefs or practices” (Markesan District School, 2015). Under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, this remains the “inviolate province of the individual and the church of his/her choice. The rights of any minority, no matter how small, must be protected. District staff members shall not use prayer, religious readings, or religious symbols as a devotional exercise or in an act of worship or celebration” (20 U.S.C. 4071 et seq.) (Markesan District School, 2015). Having examined the Markesan District School First Amendment related to this topic the next step is to conclude my research on this topic.

Explain the tension between the establishment clause and the free exercise clause of the First amendment. Support your explanation with at least one example. First we must understand the purpose of each of these clauses of the First Amendment. A common misunderstanding of the Establishment Clause is that it safeguards individual rights. In reality the purpose of the Establishment Clause is to limit the government’s power in respect to legislating on matters that deals with "respecting an establishment of religion.". The Free Exercise Clause has only a sole purpose, the safeguarding of individual rights, specifically related to religion.

Levine, M. D. (1984). Reshelving the First Amendment: Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 v. PICO. Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, 17,

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.

In summarizing the salient points of the Supreme Court case Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, it had to do with the respondent’s father who sued candidates, including a school region, affirming that the school locale's approach requiring the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance at his little girl's school damaged the First Amendment. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that the father had standing and decided for the father. Certiorari was conceded to audit the standing and First Amendment issues.

Des Moines is an important case for free speech in the United States. It affirms that students don’t lose their rights when they go to school. However, it also affirmed that schools can limit speech that “materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others” (Tinker v. Des Moines, 1969). However, the Court has ruled that there are times that the school can limit speech. In 1986, the Supreme Court ruled in Bethel v. Fraser that students can be disciplined for using vulgar and offensive language in school (Gooden, Eckes, Mead, McNeal, & Torres, 2013, p. 25). This case differed from Tinker v. Des Moines because that case was about political speech or expression. Another example of where school can limit the First Amendment is school sponsored newspapers. This was affirmed by the Court in Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier (1988). That decision stated that schools can reasonably limit the content of school-sponsored newspapers (Gooden, Eckes, Mead, McNeal, & Torres, 2013, p.

Cases that involve the First Amendment in school systems have always been around but the issue of finding a balance with these freedoms is

The decision in this case seems to have left public school students’ free speech rights in an ambiguous state. The Justices in support of the majority opinion—Justices Thomas, Alito, Kennedy, and Scalia—were thus

Due to the United States’ Supreme Court reviewing religious cases, on average, more than once a year since 1962, the Establishment Clause and Free exercise Clause have taken on a whole new meaning in public schools. Now, the two clauses are disjoined. The Establishment Clause has become the more favored one of the two, compared to the Free Exercise Clause, which is almost obsolete. Today, students

The Constitutional Issue: This issue violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth amendment because segregated schools for people of race are unconstitutional and unequal.

S. Court granted review of the case. Milford Central School’s arguments are that Good News Club is in violation of the Establishment Clause because the organizations purpose is religion and the students, especially the elementary students, would not be able to distinguish the religion instruction from the school instruction. In addition, the school has a “limited public forum” and cannot accept every application or open its doors every time an organization wants it to ("Find Law", 2015). The school related their argument to previous cases, such as, Engel v. Vitale Lee v. Weisman Sante Fe (school prayer), Peck v. Upsher County Board (no bibles in elementary schools), and Widmar v. Vincent (younger students are impressionable). Good News Club’s argument is that the school allows non-related organizations to “use the facilities based on expressive activities.” The club has a neutral viewpoint and is specific on the subject matter of promoting moral values. The club does not violate the Establishment Clause because they are neutral, viewpoint is private and not a reflection of the school, and the club is not endorsed by the school. Additionally, the club is promoting the community to put themselves above others and that is discriminated against its religious speech. The previous cases that the club uses to support their argument are Lambs Chapel v. Moriches School District (religious viewpoint but not religious purpose), Rosenberger b. Rector and

This case is about public teachers’ ability to choose their speech was being violated due to state involved agency requires public employees to pay union “agency” fees include who are non-member of this agency .This court should reverse the lower court decision and hold that mandatory agency fees that is an equal portion of the bargaining costs violates public employees’ freedom of choose the speech that is protected by first amendment for two reasons. First, people who opted- out or non-members were required to pay fees for union, and second, fees were automatically taking out from their paychecks.

The last century has seen a great deal of governmental interaction with religious groups and practices. As a result, the use of litigation to settle these disputes has been extremely prevalent. Perhaps, the first trial to outline the Establishment Clause was Everson v. Board of Education. The court ruled in a 5-4 decision upholding a New Jersey program that covered the cost of bus transportation for students attending private schools (Rossum, 281). Although the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the religious students, it unanimously agreed that the Establishment Clause was designed to serve as a separating force between church and state.

When an infringement on a constitutionally protected activity is claimed, this Court relies on the State Constitution and “‘advert[s] to federal law only as an aid to our analysis.’” In re Hamel, 137 N.H. 488, 490 (1993) (quoting State v. Gravel, 135 N.H. 172, 176 (1991)). Furthermore, this Court is not bound to adopt the federal analyses. State v. Ball, 124 N.H. 226, 233 (1983). This Court has the power to interpret the New Hampshire Constitution as more protective of individual rights than the United States Constitution and has done so before. Ball, 124 N.H. at 231-232. While this Court has not expressly found Part I, Article 22 as more protective than the First Amendment, the defendants ask this Court to find so based on the arguments below.

Chief Justice Martin, writing for the majority, stated that “[i]n addressing this question [of whether or not the Program constitutes a public purpose,] we are mindful of the general proposition articulated by this Court over forty-five years ago: ‘Unquestionably, the education of residents of this State is a recognized object of State government.’ ” Further, the court emphasized the proper scope of the long-established definition of public purposes, instructing that “[t]he term ‘public purpose’ is not to be narrowly construed.” Despite these general propositions, the majority opinion made clear that the Court has “declined to ‘confine public purpose by judicial definition, leaving each case to be determined by its own peculiar circumstances