First amendment: DOES IT APPLY TO STUDENTS 1

Students Freedom of Speech

Nick Bones

College of Southern Nevada

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Bill Foster is a student in high school, just like any boy his age he is doing all he can to

attract the attention and admiration of his female students. He thought his shiny new earring was

going to make him the topic of conversation amongst the young in his school. Unfortunately, in

doing so, he also gained some unwanted attention, the staff at his school. Bill goes to a high

school that has had problems with gang activity, and in an attempt to quell this unsavory activity

the school initiated a dress code that states there are to be no gang symbols such as jewelry,

emblems, earrings, and athletic caps. Bill is claiming that his freedom of expression rights has

been violated and wants to fight to be allowed back into school without having to lose his new

flare. Was Bill rightfully suspended or was the school targeting him just to make an example out

of him.

To figure out if his freedom of expression is being violated we need to look at similar

cases to have a standard for how situations like this should be handled. So, let’s start with the

most famous and well-known case of a student’s freedom of expression. Tinker v. Des Moines is

one of the most infamous cases of student rights when it comes to wearing your what you want.

In this case, a group of students in a Des Moines, Iowa school wore black armbands to show

their disagreement with the Vietnam War. The principal told them that they would be suspended

if they did not remove their armbands, and when the students refused, they were suspended from

school. They fought their case all the way to the supreme court and won their case, allowing

them to wear the armbands. This case, much like Bills, is a case of student freedom of

expression. If the earring has no gang symbols on it, then there is no reason for him to be forced

to remove it. Otherwise, it is violating his freedoms by not allowing him to express himself

within reasonable bounds.

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The court case Doe v. Brockton School Committee was another in which the outcome was

in favor of the student’s choice of clothes. A school in Massachusetts was attempting to disallow

a student from wearing the clothes that they felt most comfortable wearing, in this case, it was

viewed as cross-dressing. Pat Doe was born biologically as a male but had gender identity

disorder and preferred to be referred to as a female. She was dressing in female clothes and got

suspended for doing so. The courts ruled that because it didn’t cause disruption that Pat was

allowed to continue dressing in female clothes. Doe v. Brockton School Comm. is like the case of

Bill and the earring because it could be argued that his infraction was also not causing a

distraction to the rest of his class.

Another similar case to Bill’s argument was that of a young man in Juneau, Alaska. In

this case, Joseph Fredrick was on an outing that was being supervised by his school. In the court

case Morse v. Frederick they were watching the Olympic torch relay through his town. He

unfurled a banner that read “Bong Hits 4 Jesus.” Since the event was a school supervised one the

principal saw the banner and told Joseph to take it down, and when Joseph refused the principal

suspended Joseph from school for ten days. The courts eventually determined that Joseph was in

the wrong after all. He was at a school-supervised outing, and it was reasonable to assume that

the school could be viewed as promoting illegal drug use. This case is similar to Bill’s case

because earrings are explicitly mentioned as being against the dress code. Since the rules of the

dress code state that earrings could be misconstrued as gang activity then the ruling to suspend

him because of it could stand.

The final case that we can compare to the case of Bill’s earring incident is the case of

Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier. In this case, a student who was writing for the school

paper tried to publish two articles which were removed from the school paper before releasing
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the rest of the paper. The student brought up charges against the school for what she claimed was

a violation of her freedom of speech. The lower court initially ruled in favor of the student

stating that her freedom of expression had been violated. However, in an appeal, the supreme

court ultimately decided that the school was within its rights to remove the articles from a paper

that it deemed inappropriate. This case is an excellent example of how a school could say that

Bill’s earring is against what they consider appropriate based on the guidelines of their dress

code.

So, how would the courts rule in the case of Bill and the violation of the dress code? In

this case, I believe that they could use the example of Doe v Brockton School Commission to

show that if they allow the females at the school to wear earrings, then they also must allow Bill

to wear his earrings. I think that this is with the provisions that Bill can without a doubt show

that he has had no signs of gang activity in the past, and also that Bill can prove his earring has

no visible sign of gang affiliation then he would be allowed to wear it.

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References

Doe v. Brockton School committee 2000 WL 33342399 (Mass. App. 2000)

Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier 484 U.S. 261 (1988)

Morse v. Frederick, 551 U.S. 127 S. Ct. 2618 (2007)

Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District 393 U.S. 503, 506 (1969)