Question

Read the following summary of the Supreme Court majority opinion in the Tinker v. Des Moines case:

Two students wore black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam War. The school district suspended the students. The Supreme Court determined that wearing the armbands is an expression of free speech, protected by the First Amendment, and it was not disruptive in the school setting. In addition, the school had allowed other students to wear controversial symbols without suspension.
If a Supreme Court justice were to disagree with the majority opinion, which issue would be most important in forming the dissent?
A. The district feared, but could not prove, that the armbands caused disruption.
B. The two students in question were under the age of 18.
C. None of the other students were bothered by the armbands.
D. There is precedent for schools limiting student expression.

Answer 1

The answer is D. There is precedent for schools limiting student expression

Answer 2

The right answer is "D. There is precedent for schools limiting student expression."

In 1965, when Mary Beth Tinker was 13 years old, she wore a black armband to her junior high school to protest the Vietnam War. The school promptly suspended her, but her protest eventually led to a landmark Supreme Court case. In their verdict, the court vindicated Tinker by saying students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

If there were a dissent (which is the act of disagreeing with an official policy, with an instituted power or with a collective decision), in this case the most important question would be that there is a precedent for schools limiting the expression of the student.