Tyler Chase Harper: Homosexuality Is Shameful?

What if you were suspended from school because of something you were wearing? Not only was the clothing or item appropriate, it was something you were fighting for or something you believe is right. Is this fair or okay for this to happen? There is a specific incident that this situation happened to a few teenagers in Des Moines, Iowa in December of 1965. A group of students wanting to wear black armbands throughout the holiday season was in for a wake up call. (FORTAS) These plans and or idea were quickly shot down by the high school principals. The principals caught wind of the teen’s plan, so there was a meeting a few days beforehand. The talk of the meeting was to ensure the teens that if they were to wear the black armbands a few

In the case of Shanna’s Shirt, the school district had a written policy in place stating that “clothing may not advocate or advertise drugs, alcohol, or tobacco and may not contain lewd, profane, or vulgar language or symbols.” Clearly, Shanna’s shirt did not violate the policy. The school district should consider adding another criteria that bans clothing that causes substantial disruption and also include banning hate messages. In the case of Shanna’s shirt, a previous case of Harper v. Poway (2006) ruling by the U.S. Supreme court upheld the ban of a similar shirt that read “Homosexuality is Shameful. Romans 1:27.” The court used the reasoning that the language violated the rights of other students by being hurtful to the offended

Des Moines in policy JI: “Student Rights and Responsibilities.” Part E of this policy deals with students’ freedom of expression. It says that students have freedom of expression so long as it does not “substantially disrupt the operation of the school” (Regional School Unit #40, 2016, “JI”). The use of the term “substantially disrupt” in the policy shows the influence of the Tinker decision on the policies written by the school board.

However, the school board didn’t approve this action and state that whoever come to school wearing black armbands would be suspend. Mary Beth arrived to school on December 16. The principal asked her to remove her armband. When she refused, she was sent home and got suspended. Even though the protest did not disrupt classes, four other students were suspended including John Tinker and Christopher Eckhardt. The school told the students they couldn’t return to school until they agreed to remove their armbands (“Tinker V. Des Moines”). Mary Beth Tinker wrote later in an essay in Peter Irons’s book The Courage of Their Convictions “We didn’t think it was going to be that big of a deal” (Mauro). Therefore, the students decided to remove their armband and retune to school after the Christmas break. The article “Tinker V. Des Moines (393 U.S. 503, 1969)” says, “the students returned to school after the Christmas break without armbands, but in protest wore black clothing for the remainder of the school year” (“Tinker V. Des Moines”). The parents of the suspended students deprecated the school action and asked for the suspensions to be revoked, but the school refused. Therefore, the Tinkers’ father filed a

The Tinker vs. Des Moines case helped determined and interpret legal rights of young citizens for the first time. A group of students made a decision to wear black armbands to school to support a peace establishing agreement during the Vietnam War. As a result, the participating students; Mary Beth Tinker, Christopher Eckhardt, and John Tinker got suspended for their actions (Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District).The school outlawed and attempted to penalize petitioners for a “silent, passive expression of opinion”, that didn’t cause any commotion (Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist). The parents decided to sue the school for disrespecting the student’s constitutional rights of expression.

Being in 7th grade, the student did not have full rights, “For example, children have a limited right to free speech. ... However, schools may limit the child's speech if they feel it could harm other students.”( What are the Legal Rights of Children? (n.d.). Therefore, for Guiles to argue that the school was infringing on his first amendment, I feel as if this was not correct. The school had every right, and even more power than that, that could induce a dress code that involved identical uniforms. For example, according to ProCon.org. 2017, “In Long Beach, CA, after two years of a district-wide K-8 mandatory uniform policy, reports of assault and battery in the district's schools decreased by 34%, assault with a deadly weapon dropped by 50%, fighting incidents went down by 51%, sex offenses were cut by 74%, robbery dropped by 65%, possession of weapons (or weapon "look-alikes") decreased by 52%, possession of drugs went down by 69%, and vandalism was lowered by 18%.” The students shirt in question had numerous amounts of potentially provoking, or exposure, to these elements shown to cause problems in schools, and infringed on the other students being exposed to these

In 1969, a group of students filed a lawsuit against their school district claiming that their First Amendment rights were violated because the school district wrote a policy that prohibited them from wearing black armbands in a silent protest of the Vietnam War. Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969) ruled that students are entitled to their First Amendment rights as long as they are not causing a disruption to the school environment. This paper outlines the procedure and rulings in the case as well as other legal rulings that have expanded on when censorship of students is protected in public school settings as well as provides a personal reflection on how such matters can impact my future as a school administrator.

In Scott v. School Bd. of Alachua County two Florida students in 2003 were suspended from school for displaying images of the Confederate flag. Both students were told countless times to stop displaying this symbol. One student flew a Confederate flag on the antenna of his truck while the other student wore a T-shirt with the image clearly displayed. The principal believed the Confederate images created an “unhealthy environment and could lead to a dangerous environment at school.” The students sued the school saying that their First Amendment rights were violated. They argued that under Tinker v. Des Moines

Just like many places of employment, schools too have the right to censor and filter the content that is being associated with them. Some schools choose to find uniformity by having a dress code or uniform policy while others have policies in place. However, these rules are all in place

Constitutional Question: Does a prohibition against the wearing of armbands in public school, as a form of symbolic protest, violate the students' freedom of speech protections guaranteed by the First

The 1st amendment right in question is whether the schools suppressing of Mr. Harper’s speech was in direct violation of the 1st Amendments freedom of speech and the freedom exercise rights. The freedom of speech through expression of any concept, thought, idea, or notion on medium is protected as long as it does not inflect harm upon others. An applicable test to apply in a case of this nature would be the Tinker Test. The tinker test is employed to determine whether a school’s disciplinary actions violates students’ First Amendment rights. In this case the test would figure out whether the students’ religious banners and or posters distributed other students’ classwork or the rights of others. In addition to the Tinker Test, the precedent

A student is expressing himself by wearing a Trump hat, but others felt it was offensive, so they made him remove it during school hours, because it made his surrounding colleagues feel uncomfortable. He says, ‘“It’s my favorite hat,’ Logan told a local CBS-TV station on Friday. ‘The First Amendment says I can wear my hat.’ He wore it for 3 days in a row.” The first amendment backs up nine year old- Logan Autry. He says, “The vice principal came up to me and told me to take my hat off because it brings negative attention from other students” (“California school trumps third- grader’s political fashion statement” 3.) This student should not have been asked to remove his hat if it is not a disruption to others’

A student last week wore a shirt that had a keyhole in the back just below the shoulder blades, and not once did a faculty member mention that it was “inappropriate”, however, last school year a sophomore was asked to remove her headband. The principals reasoning was because the student handbook states that they are not to be worn and hers was particularly “offensive” due to the tribal pattern. This was the only instance in which someone has asked to remove a headband, despite the dress code stating that they are not allowed, just like hoodies and other articles of clothing that involve something covering a student’s head. While part of the problem may be the students with the mentality that it is not the clothing they are wearing that is the problem but the people who look at them sexually in the classroom, others do understand that we can all maintain modesty and still be allowed to wear shorts during the warmer months (Deciphering the Dress Code). The students that wear inappropriate clothing repeatedly should be punished for their actions, but not an entire student body should be punished for the actions of a select few individuals who just happen to be repeat

Imagine picking up your child from school to find her in tears. Through her sobs she tells you that her day was spent in In-School-Suspension (ISS) for refusing to remove her head scarf, part of your family’s religious attire; I’m sure that you would be outraged. Your child’s uniform policy does not allow for any type of head gear to be worn, which left her stuck outside of the classroom and in ISS. In the words of the United States Department of Education, “A school uniform policy must accommodate students whose religious beliefs are substantially burdened by a uniform requirement (“Manual on School Uniforms”), this mandate is distributed to all public schools that want to implement or are currently utilizing a uniform policy. What the school did to your child is considered a violation of her religious rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. A school district in North Carolina came to an out-of-court settlement after being slapped with a lawsuit due to the fact that they denied any exemptions from the uniform policy based on religion. Our great country was founded on the basis of Freedom of Religion, so why should we allow for it to be taken away because of a school board’s decision to adopt a uniform policy that does

Students struggle throughout high school and go through a great deal of stress. Whether it be making friends, or working hard to pass a difficult class. To make things more pressuring, they are not allowed to wear what they want. The administration made the decision that it is best to suspend a student for their choice in clothing. If they go against the rule of dress code, there will be serious consequences. What students wear should not affect their class work. If a student gets sent home for their outfit, it is affecting their grades and attendance. Punishment disrupts the students education more than what they are wearing. High school students should feel free to embrace their individuality without being pressured by dress codes; therefore, it should be eliminated from all schools indefinitely.