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Tinker Vs Moines Case Brief

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Assignment 6: Tinker v. Des Moines Ana M. Greenwood University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Tinker v. Des Moines In December 1965, thirteen-year-old Mary Beth Tinker was a high school student in Des Moines, Iowa. During that time, a group of adults and students gathered to declare their opposition to the conflicts in Vietnam. To protest, the group agreed to wear black armbands during the Christmas break (Iannacci, 2017). Tinker and a group of students decided to take this protest and armbands to school to school as well. When the Des Moines School Board learned of the protest, they passed an anticipatory rule (Walsh, 2018). On December 14, 1965, school officials met and adopted a new policy. According to such policy, student …show more content…

The group of students returned to school after the Christmas break without armbands. Nonetheless, they wore black clothing for the remainder of the school year. Through their parents, the students filed a suit. American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) agreed to help with the lawsuit. On September 1, 1966, Chief Judge Roy Stephenson of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa upheld the prohibition against armbands (Iannacci, 2017). Additionally, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed the decision without opinion as their decision was evenly divided. As a result, on November 12, 1968, the Tinkers took the case to the Supreme Court directly (Iannacci, …show more content…

Fraser because both involve students’ First Amendment Rights. However, in Bethel School District v. Fraser, the Supreme Court ruled that Fraser’s school suspension was appropriate and nondiscriminatory because while the First Amendment guarantees free speech, Fraser imprudently and vulgarly spoke at a school assembly (Walsh, 2018). The Supreme Court determined, the role of schools is to teach socially appropriate behavior and speech. It is within the school’s sole discretion whether and how to punish such speech (Decker, 2014). This decision contradicted the political speech, which the Court had protected in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District in 1969. However, in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, students wore bracelets to protest but never exhibited disrespectful or inappropriate behavior. (Decker,

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