Balancing Students' Constitutional Rights

Abstract

must learn how to become responsible citizens, and few places are more significant in developing those skills of citizenship than the public schools. However, if students are going to learn to become responsible citizens in a democracy, they must be able to exercise their constitutional rights. In its seminal 1969 case on student expression, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District, the Supreme Court declared: Students in school as well as out of school are 'persons' under the Constitution. They are possessed of fundamental rights that the state must respect. (1) In the last half of the 20th century, this ruling served as the basis for courts when defining and elaborating specific legal rights of students, as well as when balancing those rights with school officials' responsibilities for maintaining an appropriate educational environment. A few legal issues stand out from others regarding students' constitutional rights. The Supreme Court rulings in these areas have established significant precedents. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION Some of the most notable Supreme Court decisions in the last century relating to students' rights involve freedom of expression claims under the First Amendment. Beginning with Tinker in the late 1960s, the Court clearly noted that students' expression in school is protected by the First Amendment as long as the expression does not materially and substantially interfere with the operation of the schools. (2) In Tinker, students were suspended from school when they wore black armbands to protest the Vietnam War. In the absence of disorder in the situation, the Supreme Court ruled that undifferentiated fear or apprehension of disturbance is not enough to overcome the right of freedom of expression. (3) However, this ruling does not prevent educators from acting when they can reasonably forecast that a particular student expression will be disruptive or pose a danger in the school. In fact, courts over the years have upheld restrictions on a wide range of behaviors when those behaviors threatened to disrupt education (e.g., threatening written and oral remarks, inappropriate t-shirts, display of disruptive symbols, and boycotts and walkouts). Two Supreme Court decisions in the 1980s gave school officials broader leeway to limit student expression on the school campus. First, in a 1986 decision, Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser, the Supreme Court ruled that officials can censor lewd, vulgar, and indecent speech. (4) The student, Fraser, had used a sexual metaphor in his nomination speech for a classmate during a school assembly. Both students and teachers were embarrassed and offended by Fraser's obscene language. According to the Court, the First Amendment does not protect obscene speech, and school officials can determine what speech is appropriate in the school setting. In 1988, the Supreme Court followed with its second decision on student expression, Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier. (5) In this case, the Court upheld a high school principal's removal of several pages from the school newspaper, finding that he had based the decision on legitimate educational concerns. The Court distinguished between purely private speech and speech that represents the school. If a student's expression appears to bear the school's imprimatur, the school can restrict such speech when inconsistent with the school's educational mission. Hazelwood grants considerable latitude to school officials to censor school-sponsored expression but doesn't permit intentional viewpoint discrimination merely because certain views may offend some in the school community. The Tinker, Hazelwood, and Fraser standards are regularly invoked when students challenge restrictions on their First Amendment speech rights. Hazelwood and Fraser gave school officials greater discretion in limiting expression that can be viewed as school sponsored. Tinker, however, still applies fully to students' private expression, requiring school authorities to show that such expression is disruptive before they can restrict it. …