Controlling Students and Teachers: The Increasing Constriction of Constitutional Rights in Public Education

Abstract

The Tinker dicta that students and teachers do not lose their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate is at the center of almost every case that examines the First or Fourth Amendment rights of these individuals. Yet, the clear trajectory of modern appellate decisions is to favor a highly controlled school environment over one that fosters freedoms of expression or privacy. This Article explores the paradox between the rhetoric and the actual outcomes in school cases — outcomes that consistently subordinate liberty to state control. Through Tinker and its progeny, the Court has vastly constricted student rights based on the need for administrators to maintain order in schools. Based on this constriction, lower federal courts now restrict the rights of teachers in ways that often go beyond the limits placed on the children with whose care they are entrusted. This is accomplished by incorrectly analogizing teachers to students or by superimposing standards for other governmental employees onto teachers without recognizing the special nature of the educative process. The effect of this judicial cabining of students and teachers’ rights has been a diminution in educational outcomes. Students do not learn the value of dissent or autonomy, accepting as the norm these infringements on their constitutional rights. Teachers must endure overly constrictive curtailments of their speech and privacy rights, which negatively impact the pedagogical dynamics of their professions. The significance of this trend is that it not only has a chilling effect on learning, but it also conditions the citizenry from youth to accept restrictions on speech and to acquiesce to government surveillance. Because schools are to serve as laboratories for democratic engagement, courts should renew their attention to the infringement creep in this area of jurisprudence and the negative effects it engenders.