®NLN NEX Verbal Quizlet Free

1. The 1960s and 1970s are often distinguished as hallmark decades for free speech and free expression in American history- the civil rights movement, feminist movement, and free speech movement all have their roots in the tumultuous Sixties and Seventies. As stated in Welner, Kim, and Biegel (2017), "In the 1960s and 1970s, free speech issues were at the forefront of education-related debates, with students asserting themselves in ways they never had before" (p. 33). The late 1960s and early 1970s were ripe with protest, specifically in response to the violent atrocities associated with the Vietnam War. Inevitably, this democratic fervor seeped into the systems and structures of K-12 public schooling. Thus, it is not surprising that this era gave birth to many of the modern constitutional debates regarding students and their First Amendment rights in public schools. In particular, this era gave birth to the landmark Supreme Court case known as Tinker v. Des Moines (1969). 2. Tinker v. Des Moines emerged from the countercultural milieu of the late Sixties: "In December 1965, a group of adults and students in Des Moines, lowa held a meeting. The group determined to publicize their objections to the hostilities in Vietnam and their support for a truce by wearing black armbands during the holiday season and by fasting on December 16 and New Year's Eve" (p. 43). Three students attending that meeting were John Tinker, 15 years old, Mary Beth Tinker, 13 years old, and Christopher Eckhardt, 16 years old. Fueled by the images they witnessed on television broadcasts, Tinker and her classmates decided to wear black armbands as a symbol of youthful resistance and patriotism. The administrators of the Des Moines Independent Community School District caught word of the upcoming protest and hastily adopted a school policy that promised to suspend any students who wore black armbands in protest of the Vietnam War. On December 16 and 17, the administration attempted to squash the public display of solidarity, all three students were suspended from school indefinitely "until they would come back without their armbands" (p. 43). 3. The students' parents fought back, suing the school for violating the children's right to free speech. After a U.S. district court - and later a U.S. court of appeals - ruled against the children and their families, citing that their protest was a disruption and breeched local school standards, the case made its way all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The resulting decision of Tinker v. Des Moines set in motion a historical tidal wave of praise and criticism. Promising that students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate," the Supreme Court justices decreed a 7-2 ruling in favor of the protestors. They claimed that the students' silent and symbolic expression was protected under the U.S. Constitution, citing that all political speech in public schools remains guarded by the First Amendment so long as it does not "substantially disrupt the learning environment." In a bold move for the times, the decision claimed that "In order for [a school] to justify prohibition of a particular expression of opinion, it must be able to show that its action was caused by something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint." 4. Tinker V. Des Moines became one of the key democratic victories of the mid-late twentieth century. The decades that followed, however, created clashing currents of belief that were captured by some of the major court cases that reinterpreted the Tinker decision. For the most part, these court cases not only stood as lasting symbols of the political beliefs of the judicial majorities involved, but also as emblems of the socio-historical climate from which they resonated. Less than 20 years after Tinker V. Des Moines, the constitutional precedents made by the landmark decision quickly dissipated, receding into a new sea of social censorship for students. Constitutional reinterpretations of Tinker in the