![]() ![]() ![]() JUSTICE FORTAS delivered the opinion of the Court.He also regarded the education setting as inappropriate for the same First Amendment protection as other public settings. He was therefore unwilling to extend the same kind of absolute protection to “symbolic” expression that did not involve written or spoken words. It is worth noting that although Justice Black was renowned as a First Amendment absolutist who opposed any restriction on speech, he interpreted “speech” quite literally as spoken or written words. Although Tinker is still on the books, it has been narrowed by subsequent opinions involving speech in the educational setting such as Bethel v. Moreover, Black argued that the Court’s judicial activism in Tinker usurped the authority of local school boards and undermined school discipline. He noted that a math teacher’s lesson was “practically ‘wrecked’ ” because of the disruption caused by Marybeth’s armband protest. Byars, he found that the armbands did not “materially and substantially interfere with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school.” In a stinging dissent, Justice Hugo Black (1886–1971) characterized the facts quite differently. ![]() In our system, state-operated schools may not be enclaves of totalitarianism.” Fortas’ opinion hinged on the salient fact that the Tinkers’ symbolic speech involved a peaceful and passive demonstration. Justice Fortas reasoned: “It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate. Tinker is an important precedent that extended symbolic speech to the educational setting. The Tinkers sued, claiming that the ban amounted to an unconstitutional “prior restraint,” and were represented by the local ACLU affiliate. When they defied this policy, Marybeth Tinker, her brother John, and their friend John Eckhardt were suspended. The school board heard about the protest and, before it took place, banned the wearing of the armbands. ![]() After attending a protest on the Vietnam War with their parents in 1965, a group of students decided to express their views in school by wearing black armbands emblazoned with a peace symbol. ![]()
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