Section 7.6 First Amendment Speech in Schools

• Library: School Law (2003 Ed. + 2016 Supp)

III. (§7.6) First Amendment Speech in Schools

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution, made applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, provides: “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble . . . .” The Supreme Court, in an often-quoted passage, stated: “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 v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 506 (1969). Those rights are not absolute, however, and must be “applied in light of the special characteristics of the school environment.” Id. at 506.

In Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675 (1986), the Supreme Court held that the First Amendment does not prevent a school district from disciplining a student for making a lewd and indecent speech nominating a fellow student for a student elective office at a school-sponsored assembly. The Court emphasized that it is a highly appropriate function of public school officials to prohibit the use of vulgar and offensive language in public discourse and to protect children—especially in a captive audience—from exposure to sexually explicit, indecent, or lewd speech. Hence, although the state may not prohibit adults from using an offensive form of expression in making what the speaker considers a political point, it does not follow that the same latitude must be permitted to children in a public school.

In Wildman v. Marshalltown, 249 F.3d 768 (8^th Cir. 2001), the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment for a school district in a...