Show The First Amendment and Public Schools Courts treat high school and college students differently under the First Amendment. The cases below will help us understand why that is so. Please read them and be prepared to discuss them in class. High School: Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District (1969): The First Amendment applies to students on school property unless officials can demonstrate a reason to restrict it.
However, the court has shifted the focus from students to school officials and what they must do to meet their responsibility to instill societal values in students. Bethel School District v. Fraser (1986):
Prior to the speech, the student (Fraser) had discussed the contents of his speech with two teachers, who told him the speech was "inappropriate and that he probably should not deliver it," and that delivery of the speech might have "severe consequences." The Supreme Court noted that during Fraser's delivery of the speech, some students hooted and yelled; some by gestures that graphically simulated the sexual activities pointedly alluded to in respondent's speech. Other students appeared to be bewildered and embarrassed by the speech. A Bethel High School disciplinary rule prohibited the use of obscene language in the school. Fraser was suspended for three days but served two. "The pervasive sexual innuendo in Fraser's speech was plainly offensive to both teachers and students -- indeed, to any mature person. By glorifying male sexuality, and in its verbal content, the speech was acutely insulting to teenage girl students. The speech could well be seriously damaging to its less mature audience, many of whom were only 14 years old and on the threshold of awareness of human sexuality. Some students were reported as bewildered by the speech and the reaction of mimicry it provoked. This Court's First Amendment jurisprudence has acknowledged limitations on the otherwise absolute interest of the speaker in reaching an unlimited audience where the speech is sexually explicit and the audience may include children. We hold that petitioner School District acted entirely within its permissible authority in imposing sanctions upon Fraser in response to his offensively lewd and indecent speech. Unlike the sanctions imposed on the students wearing armbands in Tinker, the penalties imposed in this case were unrelated to any political viewpoint. The First Amendment does not prevent the school officials from determining that to permit a vulgar and lewd speech such as respondent's would undermine the school's basic educational mission. A high school assembly or classroom is no place for a sexually explicit monologue directed towards an unsuspecting audience of teenage students. Accordingly, it was perfectly appropriate for the school to disassociate itself to make the point to the pupils that vulgar speech and lewd conduct is wholly inconsistent with the "fundamental values" of public school education." Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier (1988): The Supreme Court recognized that school principals have broad powers to censor school-supported student expression.
Hazelwood does not require administrative censorship of student publications. Morse v. Frederick (2007)
Healy v. James (1972):
Papish v. Board of Curators of the University of Missouri (1973):
Antonelli v. Hammond (D. Mass. 1970):
We are well beyond the belief that any manner of state regulation is permissible simply because it involves an activity which is a part of the university structure and is financed with funds controlled by the administration. The state is not necessarily the unrestrained master of what it creates and fosters. Thus in cases concerning school-supported publications or the use of school facilities, the courts have refused to recognize as permissible any regulations infringing free speech when not shown to be necessarily related to the maintenance of order and discipline within the educational process.
What restraints have courts placed on public universities in dealing with student publications?
Bazaar v. Fortune (5th Cir. 1973): Courts specifically have declared that public college administrators may not: When can public universities censor student publications? Does Hazelwood apply to college students?
In Kincaid v. Gibson (E.D. Ky. 1997), Judge Joseph M. Hood said the university "was entitled to exercise reasonable control over the yearbook" because it was not intended by KSU officials to be a public forum. The plaintiffs (the students) have put forth no evidence that The Thorobred was intended to reach or communicate with anybody but KSU students. . . . [T]he plaintiffs do not contend that the yearbook was held out to the public; instead, the plaintiffs have aptly stated that the yearbook was a student publication, prepared and distributed to the students by the students. As can be seen, then, the yearbook was not intended to be a journal of expression and communication in a public forum sense, but instead was intended to be a journal of the "goings on" in a particular year at KSU. In November 1999, a split three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed that decision. However, in January 2001, a panel of 10 judges of the Sixth Circuit overturned the decision, ruling that the university had violated the First Amendment. A seven-member majority of the panel said the contention by KSU officials' that they were regulating only the style and form of the books, not the content, was "simply not credible." Writing for the majority, Judge R. Guy Cole said: Confiscation ranks with forced government speech as among the purest forms of content alteration. There is little if any difference between hiding from public view the words and pictures students use to portray their college experience, and forcing students to publish a state-sponsored script. In either case, the government alters student expression by obliterating it.
Return to Media Law Home PageWho writes the majority opinion for the Supreme Court quizlet?Chief Justice writes the majority opinion or can assign it, if he is not part of the majority opinion then the Senior Justice writes the opinion. What two actions could congress take to undo a supreme court ruling that a federal law is unconstitutional?
What was the purpose of the Establishment clause?The Establishment clause prohibits the government from "establishing" a religion. The precise definition of "establishment" is unclear. Historically, it meant prohibiting state-sponsored churches, such as the Church of England.
What guiding principle emerged from the Tinker case?In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court's majority ruled that neither students nor teachers “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” The Court took the position that school officials could not prohibit only on the suspicion that the speech might disrupt the learning ...
Which idea applies to the Supreme Court's ruling in Engel v Vitale?Hudson Jr. In Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962), the Supreme Court ruled that school-sponsored prayer in public schools violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment.
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