Statement Of Assignment. You Asked Me To Do Research And

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.

Oliver Wendell Holmes High School took part in a community wide health fair. The school set up a booth and asked their students to participate. The teachers gave extra credit to the students that attended the health fair, and the student would have to sign in at the schools booth to verify their attendance. Susie Speeker, a student at Oliver Wendell Holmes High School, attended the fair with her family. While at the community wide health fair, Susie held up a sign which stated marijuana should be legalized for compassionate use. A fellow student that attended the same school as Susie took a picture of her holding the sign and published it in the school newspaper. The principal of the school saw the photo and suspended Susie for violating the schools policy by promoting illegal drugs at a school function. Since Susie’s suspension, she claims that she has been harassed by other students and teachers at her school. Susie claims that her grades have dropped which could result in limited college choices. As a result, Susie claims her civil rights under 42 U.S.C § 1983 were violated.

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

School boards often do not adequately justify their reasons for denying High School Students their first amendment rights. Usually, the

The right to freedom of expression of ones religion is at stake in this case. Mrs. Williams has a right to express her religion freely. However, based upon the Establishment Clause which prohibits any law “respecting the establishment of religion”, she does not have the right to force others to conform to her way of thinking. At the same time, students and community members have a right to express their religion, too. They also have a right not to have another person’s religion forced on them. So there is only one individual right at stake here, but it is not possible to respect this right of behalf of all the claimants. While the majority of the community, the school board, and some students will feel that it is Mrs. Williams’ right to keep the bulletin board posted, some community members, students, and ACLU feel it is their right not to keep it posted.

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.

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

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

Over five years have passed since high school senior Joseph Frederick was suspended for 10 days by school principal Deborah Morse after refusing her request to take down a 14-foot banner he was displaying at a school-sanctioned event which read “BONG HiTS 4 JESUS.” Born as a seemingly trivial civil lawsuit in which Frederick sued the school for violating his First Amendment rights to free speech, the case made its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the long-awaited ruling of Morse v. Frederick has finally been released. In a 5-4 split decision, the court ruled in favor of Morse and upheld the school board’s original ruling that Morse was acting within her rights and did not violate Frederick’s First Amendment rights by taking away his

Juneau-Douglas High School was in session during the Olympic Torch Relay for the 2002 winter Olympics. The school decided that it would let its students and faculty out for a short period to watch as the torchbearers passed the school. This was considered a school event and was treated as a field trip. Joseph Frederick was a senior at JDHS. He was a bit late coming to school that day. When Frederick arrived to school during the event, he met up with some of his friends. They soon pulled out fourteen-foot banner that had the phrase: “BONG HiTS 4 JESUS”. The school’s principal, Deborah Morse, almost immediately told the students to take down the banner. All but one student complied with Morse. That student was Joseph Frederick. She told the boys to take the sign down because she believed that the sign was encouraging the use of illegal drugs in school. She told Frederick to report to her office where she later punished him by suspending him for ten days.

One of the main issues is a student’s right to free speech. This was brought to everyone’s attention back in 1943 in

Juneau-Douglas High School holds an event each year called the Olympic Torch Relay and in 2007 senior Joseph Fredrick unveiled his banner which had the words “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” on it in. This was a violation of the schools rule to not promote illegal drugs (Supreme Court). The case was brought to the Supreme Court, Morse v. Fredrick (2007), and they held, 5-4, that the “school authorities do not violate the First Amendment when they stop students from expressing views that may be interpreted as promoting illegal drug use” (uscourts.gov). Although in this case the Supreme Court was in favor of Morse, this is not always the case. Students do have limited free speech on high school campuses, however in the case of Tinker v. Des Moines (1969) the students won.

“Students … [do not] shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gates.”

In response, the Superintendent issued a ban on all such anti-religious speech. Ironically, the cheerleaders meant no harm, obviously the banner was against a school whose mascot was a Native American. The cheerleaders in turn, sued the school district to preserve their rights to free speech, which resulted in an injunction allowing them to display the banner. “Free speech prevailed, reminding us of the well-established principle that students do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate” (Mateer). In a case such as this, where no one was being harmed, an advocacy group came out and stated that the banner indeed racially targeted a group of individuals, when in fact it was not doing anything of the sort. Things like this will always happen, it does not matter if boundaries are placed on the freedom of speech clause or not, there will always be a way to get around it unless the government says “no one has any freedom of speech.”

“At what point do we take personal attacks, and permit those, as opposed to -- I fully accept you’re entitled, in some circumstances, to speak about any political issue you want. But where is the line between doing that, and creating hardship for an individual?” –Justice Sonia Sotomayor. In the case of Snyder V. Phelps, Two very passionate sides debated just that. The Snyder family accused Phelps, or Westboro, of the tort claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress, after Westboro picketed Phelps’ son’s funeral. Westboro disputed this, claiming their protests were protected under The First Amendment.