Matthew N. Fraser

Citizens in America are born with a various amount of rights. One of these rights include the freedom of speech and expression. However, school administrators have the ability to restrict a student’s expression. The Supreme Court Cases ‘Bethel School District v. Fraser’ and ‘Frederick V. Morse’ gave schools the right for the administrators to discipline children when they see fit. Students should be able to express themselves in any way without fearing that their school administrators will discipline

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

The act of the School District in suspending the students clearly showed a serious impediment of the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth. All students who petitioned were quiet and passive, neither disrupting nor interfering with school activities and the rights of other students—which makes their symbolic speech protected under the Constitution. What the students were protesting against accounts for their expression of opinion, which is again protected under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Since this case, the Supreme Court has issued decisions that have given school administrators more power to regulate student conduct. Nevertheless, the Tinker decision changed the way students seek to exercise their First Amendment rights

The following cases are utilized: Pickering v. Board of Education, Mt. Healthy City School District v. Doyle, Connick v. Myers, Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeir, and Garcetti v. Ceballos. The case, Pickering v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court acknowledged teachers have the right to voice personal views as they relate to issues of public concern (Cambron-McCabe, McCathy & Eckes, 2014). More specifically, “The Pickering case is one of the most influential court cases concerned with the balancing of teacher’s First Amendment right to freedom of expression against the state’s interest in promoting efficient schools” (DeMitchell & DeMitchell, 1990, p 385). If a teachers voices personal views that are damaging to coworkers, school procedures, ones’ occupational performance, and does not directly relate to public concerns there will be grounds for disciplinary actions (Cambron-McCabe, McCathy & Eckes, 2014). This constitutional rights stands both inside and outside of the classroom, as educators can utilize various methods of communication, such as social media, written artifacts, visual relics, and expressive language. In the case, Hazelwood v Kuhlmeier, a teacher’s personal opinion can be expressed within the contours of a classroom when applicable to pedagogical reasons. More specifically, “Reasoning that the teachers was speaking for the school, the court concluded that teachers are not entitled to express views in the classroom that are counter to the adopted curriculum” (Cambron-McCabe, McCathy & Eckes, 2014, p. 242). If the topic discussed within the classroom is controversial in nature it must be censored, thus deeming appropriate to a youthful audience. In conclusion, it is imperative for educators to ‘think before they speak,’ as their actions can have detrimental impacts on key stakeholders as well as their

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.

The issue of Tinker v. Des Moines ISD was that students were to wear black arm bands to school in protest of the Vietnam War; however the school warned that anyone wearing the armbands would be would be suspended, but the Tinker children wore their armbands to school (they were the only ones of the group to do so) and were suspended leading to Mr. and Mrs. Tinker filing a law suit claiming that the school violated the children's right to freedom of speech and expression. The court ruled against the school district saying that "students do not shed their constitutional rights at the school house gates. In doing so the court protected what has come to be known as "symbolic speech." In the case of Engle v. Vitale, the Supreme Court ruled that prayers in schools were considered unconstitutional, leading to a ban of all prayers led by teachers in school, even if the prayer was considered voluntary, stating, in a way, that there was some sort of “separation of church and state” which is not true. Lastly, New York Times v. Sullivan focused more on the freedom of the press, ruling that “actual malice” must be proven to support a finding of libel against a public figure.

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.

Freedom of Expression is a right that all Americans can joy on a daily basis, now imagine if it were a controlled right? That doesn’t make it a right, more so something that we can use when the government says so. In November of 1968, 4 students organized a silent protest against the US policies in Vietnam, which ended with suspension from their local schools. The issue was brought up in court, which led to split consensus. The majority opinion of the Supreme Court was that the expression of speech couldn’t be prohibited unless it was a disruption and harmed the rights of others. The dissent opinion stated that if freedom of speech was without a limit to an extent, who says it could lead to school being a platform for the exercise of free speech instead of education. The argument came to the conclusion of defining the rights and freedom of speech for children in school. I agree with the majority opinion, seeing the freedom of expression shouldn’t be controlled and such.

One night in 2008, Erin Andrews, an ESPN reporter, stayed in a Nashville Marriott Hotel, and her life has not been the same since. Michael David Barrett, who had been following Andrews for quite some time, called the hotel and booked the room adjacent to hers (which he had also done a few times). He drilled a peep hole in the wall and proceeded to film her undress. These videos were released on the internet and the day has yet to pass in which they cease to haunt Andrews. Barrett was sentenced to a mere 30 months in prison along with a few fines. This conundrum is a perfect example as to why feminism is necessary and very relevant. Although some may say the feminism is in no way a crucial necessity for society today and Andrews deserved it, the truth of the matter is that we need feminism because the shame often falls

As in the first case discussed, the issue before the court was also based on the first amendment of the Constitution. The question before the court was; “Do school officials have the right to restrict the free expression of students without first showing that such expression will disrupt the operation of the school?”. After deliberation, the court overturned the decisions of the lower courts and determined that the school board’s actions violated the first and fourteenth

Robert Clayton Dean is a mild-mannered lawyer who works in Washington D.C. He is on the trail of a kingpin named Pintero. Meanwhile, a politician named Thomas Reynolds is negotiating with Congressman Phillip Hammersley about a new surveillance system with satellites. But, Hammersley declines, that is when Reynolds had Hammersley killed, but this murder was caught on tape, and this person was being chased by Reynolds' team of NSA agents, the guy must ditch the tape, so he plants it on Dean. Then, the NSA decides to get into Dean's life. That is when Dean's life began to fall apart all around him, with his wife and job both gone. Dean wants to find out what is going on. Then, he meets a man named "Brill" who tells him that Dean has something that the government wants. That is when

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

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

Everyone in America should be guaranteed the freedom of speech granted by The Constitution. In 1988, the court ruled in Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier that schools \could limit freedom of speech in school if they had “educational concerns” (Jacobs). The problem is that “educational concerns” is too vague and school districts are able to use this as a loophole to get away with removing articles that do not need to be removed. Often, the concern is based on perception and image more than anything else. Angela Riley’s article “20 years later: Teachers reflect on Supreme Court’s Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier ruling” quotes Frank LoMonte, executive director of

One case that caught my eye was the O.T. v. Frenchtown Elementary School District Board of Education, where a student performed in an afterschool talent show and wanted to sing the song “Awesome God.” The school violated her rights due to her performance not bearing the imprimatur of the school and her viewpoint being discriminated (O.T. v. Frenchtown Elementary School District Board of Education).