Plaintiff in Tinker v. Des Moines discusses First Amendment
Katy Beals | Staff Photographer
Mary Beth Tinker, the plaintiff in the Supreme Court Case Tinker vs. Des Moines, shares her story with students on Wednesday. She was suspended from school for wearing a armband protesting the Vietnam war. The lecture is a part of a cross-country tour to discuss free speech.
CORRECTION: In a previous headline and caption for this article, Des Moines, Iowa, was misspelled. The Daily Orange regrets this error.
Mary Beth Tinker was a preacher’s daughter and didn’t want to get in trouble.
But through personal experience with the civil rights movement and activism, Tinker gradually realized the importance of standing up for something.
In 1965, Tinker and other students at her junior high school wore black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam War. The students were eventually suspended, leading to the landmark Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District. The Supreme Court ruled that students’ First Amendment rights didn’t stop at the schoolhouse door.
Tinker talked about her story and the stories of other students who have struggled with having their First Amendment rights recognized at the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium on Wednesday afternoon.
The lecture was a part of a cross-country tour to encourage free speech and hear from students across the country. Tinker teamed up with Student Press Law Center lawyer Mike Hiestand for the tour.
She also addressed the intersection of free speech and social media, as well as how student rights have evolved since her case.
“Of course I thought we would lose the whole thing,” Tinker said of the Supreme Court case, since students aren’t supposed to go against their schools and principals.
The person who sent her to the principal’s office was her favorite mathematics teacher, she said.
“People kept calling me brave,” Tinker said. “But I didn’t feel so brave.”
Tinker mentioned other First Amendment cases, such the one involving a “Bongs for Jesus” sign and the Hazelwood School District. The principal wanted to censor a school newspaper’s story on teenage pregnancy.
“I’ve experienced firsthand how young people’s rights are not respected,” Tinker said in an interview before the speech. “The children have to pay the price of the policies they had no part in making,”
The tour, Tinker said, is about young people using their First Amendment rights to create a “more kind and compassionate world” by telling their stories.
After the lecture, she and Hiestand answered questions about her case, its implications today and how young people face new First Amendment challenges.
Alex Amico, a freshman broadcast and digital journalism major, asked Tinker how the First Amendment should be applied in instances of conflicting free speech rights.
He cited an example of a court case in which a student wore an anti-gay T-shirt to school on the day of the school’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender club’s Day of Silence.
The main problem, Tinker said, is hate speech and the question of where to draw the line.
Hiestand, the lawyer, said the line can be based on the “Tinker standard” — speech that’s unlawful or disrupts the educational environment.
“It was just really cool that we had someone speak here who struck the single greatest blow for free speech in public schools in American history,” Amico said.
Tinker ended by telling students that she hopes they can speak up for what they believe in, too.
“You have your own issues as for standing up for rights,” she said. “I hope that you can also help kids stand up for their rights.”
Published on September 26, 2013 at 12:48 am
Contact: clmoran@syr.edu
