Wearing Armbands In Schools

Most people think that all amendments are automatically given to everyone, but it was not always like that. The Tinker v. Des Moines case is about the First Amendment and how a group of students in 1965 were suspended from school because they were wearing black armbands in order to protest against the Vietnam War .What does the First Amendment have to do with wearing armbands? Well, The First Amendment is the right to free speech, religion, expression, opinion, and press. The First Amendment was created in order to give every human the freedom of choosing. The Supreme Court 's decision to side with the students changed the way students express themselves today. Because of the Court 's decision to uphold students’ right to symbolic

They named this case Tinker v. Des Moines because Eckhardt was a hard name to pronounce, and the Tinker family was more involved in the case. On November 12, 1968, The District Court sided with the Tinker family. They were able to recognized the wearing of the armband for the purpose of peaceful protesting. But, The school was not ready to give up. The 8th Circuit Court Appeals in Iowa sided with the school officials by saying the black armbands were inappropriate for the school. They also believed that the black armbands were causing a distraction to others. The kids were suspended again, but they appealed and brought their matter to a higher court. Four months later, the matter reached the Supreme Court. On February 24, 1969, in a 7:2 majority decision, The Supreme Court decided that the kids should have not been suspended. The First Amendment rights of children were equal to those as adults. It was only a few out of 18,000 students wearing these armbands, and there were no reports of disturbance on school grounds. Since these kids did not cause a disturbance, there was no reason for them to be suspended. The only reason the school suspended the 5 students was from the fear of disturbance from wearing these

The students kept appealing because they felt as if they had the right to express their opinions. It was part of the First Amendment. These kids had no reason to be suspended because they were protected by the First Amendment. The Supreme Court decided to take the case because it was a big deal to every school. It concerned every student. This meant that whatever the Supreme Court decides would affect every school. The Supreme Court saw the black armbands were a form of political speech and stated that the schools had to show evidence of the possibility of a “substantial disturbance” before free speech and expression could be limited.

The Tinker case is about the freedom and speech and expression. The First Amendment was very important to the kids. It is also about the Fourteenth Amendment, because the state did not agree with the armbands, but the Supreme Court did. Wearing the armbands was a way to express their opinions on the Vietnam War. The plan was to wear the armbands to express their opinions and then fast on New Years Day. The Des Moines School Officials did not like the kids wearing armbands because they thought it was disrupting class and causing too much