Tinker v. Des Moines

    Case:  December 1965 as a protest against the Vietnam war, students along with their parents  decided on dec. 16 and New Year's Eve they would wear black armbands.  On December 14 the school stated that any student wearing an armband on the sixteenth would be asked to remove it or be suspended.  The students were suspended for wearing the armbands, however the majority wore their armbands on a day other than the sixteenth.  The courts favored the side of the school in the lower courts.
    Ruling:
      The Supreme Court 7:2 stated that the student's rights had been violated.  The Court's opinion was written by Justice Abe Fortas
       "It can hardly argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or the expression at the schoolhouse gate... On the other hand, the Court has repeatedly emphasized the need for affirming the comprehensive authority of the States and of school officials, consistent with fundamental constitutional safeguards, to prescribe and control conduct in the schools...."
       "If a regulation were adopted by the school officials forbidding discussion of the Vietnam conflict, or the expression by any student of opposition to it anywhere on school property except as part of a prescribed classroom exercise, it would be obvious that the regulation would materially and substantially disrupt the work and discipline of the school"
       "In our system, students may not be regarded as closed-circuit recipients of only that which the state chooses to communicate.  They may not be confined to the expression of those sentiments that are officially approved.
       "the wearing of armbands in the circumstances of this case was entirely divorced from actually or potentially disruptive conduct by those participating in it.  It was closely akin to 'pure speech' which, we have repeatedly held, is entitled to comprehensive protection under the First Amendment."
     
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