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Answer:
Tinker v. Des Moines dealt with First Amendment rights. During the Vietnam War, a group of students decided to wear armbands to school to protest the war. The school principals created a policy stating that anyone who wears armbands will immediately be asked to remove them. Students who did not comply would be suspended and would be able to return once they complied. Mary Beth and John Tinker and their friend, Christopher Eckhardt, were suspended despite the fact that they weren’t disrupting learning. The rule didn’t apply to elementary schools, so the two youngest kids (Hope and Paul Tinker) weren’t affected. In a 7–2 decision, the Supreme Court held that the First Amendment applies in public schools.
More Veridical Connection:
The question that the Supreme Court imposed was “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 Amendment?”
As Justice Abe Fortas delivered the opinion of the 7-2 majority. The Supreme Court held that the armbands represented pure speech that is entirely separate from the actions or conduct of those participating in it. The Court also held that the students did not lose their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech when they stepped onto school property. In order to justify the suppression of speech, the school officials must be able to prove that the conduct in question would "materially and substantially interfere" with the operation of the school. In this case, the school district's actions evidently stemmed from a fear of possible disruption rather than any actual interference.
In his concurring opinion, Justice Potter Stewart wrote that children are not necessarily guaranteed the full extent of First Amendment rights. Justice Byron R. White wrote a separate concurring opinion in which he noted that the majority's opinion relies on a distinction between communication through words and communication through action.
Justice Hugo L. Black wrote a dissenting opinion in which he argued that the First Amendment does not provide the right to express any opinion at any time. Because the appearance of the armbands distracted students from their work, they detracted from the ability of the school officials to perform their duties, so the school district was well within its rights to discipline the students. In his separate dissent, Justice John M. Harlan argued that school officials should be afforded wide authority to maintain order unless their actions can be proven to stem from a motivation other than a legitimate school interest.
Thanks,
Eddie