Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969) was a decision by the United States Supreme Court that defined the constitutional rights of students in U.S. public schools. The Tinker test is still used by courts today to determine whether a school's disciplinary actions violate students' First Amendment rights.
Background of the case
In 1965, Des Moines, Iowa residents John F. Tinker (15 years old), his siblings Mary Beth Tinker (13 years old), Hope Tinker (11 years old), and Paul Tinker (8 years old), along with their friend Christopher Eckhardt (16 years old) decided to wear black armbands to their schools (high school for John and Christopher, junior high for Mary Beth, elementary school for Hope and Paul) in protest of the Vietnam War and supporting the Christmas Truce called for by Senator Robert F. Kennedy. The principals of the Des Moines schools learned of the plan and met on December 14 to create a policy that stated that school children wearing an armband would be asked to remove it immediately. Violating students would be suspended and allowed to return to school after agreeing to comply with the policy. The participants decided to violate this policy. Mary Beth Tinker and Christopher Eckhardt were suspended from school for wearing armbands on December 16 and John Tinker was suspended for doing the same on the following day. (The two youngest participants were not punished.) Mary Beth, Christopher, and John were suspended from school until after January 1, 1966, when their protest had been scheduled to end.
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Subsequent jurisprudence
Tinker remains a viable and frequently-cited Court precedent, though subsequent Court decisions have determined limitations on the scope of student free speech rights. In
Bethel School District v. Fraser, a 1986 case, the Supreme Court held that a high school student's sexual innuendo–laden speech during a student assembly was not constitutionally protected. Though Fraser applies the Tinker test of disruption to school decorum, if not undermining of educational mission, the effect is to make an exception to
Tinker for "indecent" speech.
Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, where the court ruled that schools have the right to regulate, for legitimate educational reasons, the content of non-forum, school-sponsored newspapers, also limits
Tinker's application. The Court in Hazelwood clarified that both
Fraser and
Hazelwood were decided under the doctrine of
Perry Education Association v. Perry Local Educators Association. Such a distinction keeps undisturbed the Material Disruption doctrine of
Tinker, while deciding certain student free speech cases under the Nonpublic Forum doctrine of
Perry. In
Morse v. Frederick, the so-called "Bong Hits For Jesus" case of 2007, the Court held that schools may, consistent with the First Amendment, restrict student speech at a school-sponsored event, even those events occurring off school grounds, when that speech is reasonably viewed as promoting illegal drug use. In 2013, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit re-heard a case that had been argued before a panel of its judges, considering whether a charitable effort - a breast cancer awareness drive - impermissibly disrupts a middle school by distributing bracelets imprinted "I ♥ Boobies."
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