The School Cases: Summaries
Write a brief on the case I assigned to you in class.

Edwards v. Aguillard 1987 Modern American Creationism arose out of the theological split over modernist higher criticism and its rejection by the Fundamentalist Christian movement which promoted Biblical literalism and, post 1920, took up the anti-evolution cause led by William Jennings Bryan. Teaching of evolution had become a common part of the public school curriculum, but his campaign was based on the idea that “Darwinism” had caused German militarism and was a threat to traditional religion and morality. Several states passed legislation to ban or restrict the teaching of evolution. The Tennessee Butler Act was tested in the Scopes Trial of 1925, and continued in effect with the result that evolution was not taught in many schools.[2] When the United States sought to catch up in science during the 1960s with new teaching standards which reintroduced evolution, the creation science movement arose, presenting what was claimed to be scientific evidence supporting young earth creationism. Attempts were made to reintroduce legal bans, but the Supreme Court in Epperson v. Arkansas (1968) ruled that bans on teaching evolutionary biology are unconstitutional as they violate the establishment clause of the US constitution, which forbids the government from advancing a particular religion.[2] In the early 1980s several states attempted to introduce creationism along with teaching of evolution, and the Louisiana legislature passed a law titled the "Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science in Public School Instruction Act". The Act did not require teaching either creationism or evolution, but did require that when evolutionary science was taught, "creation science" had to be taught as well. Creationists had lobbied aggressively for the law, and the State argued that the Act was about academic freedom for teachers. Lower courts had ruled that the State's actual purpose was to promote the religious doctrine of "creation science", but the State appealed to the Supreme Court. In a similar case in McLean v. Arkansas had also decided against creationism. Mclean v. Arkansas however was not appealed to the national level, creationists instead thinking that they had better chances with Edwards v. Aguillard. Opinion On June 19, 1987 the Supreme Court, in a seven to two majority opinion written by Justice William J. Brennan, ruled that the Act constituted an unconstitutional infringement on the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, based on the three-pronged Lemon test, which is: 1. The government's action must have a legitimate secular purpose; 2. The government's action must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion; and 3. The government's action must not result in an "excessive entanglement" of the government and religion. However it did note that alternative scientific theories could be taught: We do not imply that a legislature could never require that scientific critiques of prevailing scientific theories be taught. . . . Teaching a variety of scientific theories about the origins of humankind to schoolchildren might be validly done with the clear secular intent of enhancing the effectiveness of science instruction. The Court found that, although the Louisiana legislature had stated that its purpose was to "protect academic freedom," that purpose was dubious because the Act gave Louisiana teachers no freedom they did not already possess and instead limited their ability to determine what scientific principles should be taught. Because it was unconvinced by the state's proffered secular purpose, the Court went on to find that the legislature had a "preeminent religious purpose in enacting this statute." Dissent Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, dissented, accepting the Act's stated purpose of "protecting academic freedom" as a sincere and legitimate secular purpose. They construed the term "academic freedom" to refer to "students' freedom from indoctrination", in this case their freedom "to decide for themselves how life began, based upon a fair and balanced presentation of the scientific evidence". However, they also criticized the first prong of the Lemon test, noting that "to look for the sole purpose of even a single legislator is probably to look for something that does not exist". Consequences and aftermath The ruling had great effect on the creationist movement. It only affected state schools, with independent schools, home schools, Sunday schools and Christian schools free to still teach creationism. Within two years a creationist textbook had been produced: Of Pandas and People which attacked evolutionary biology without mentioning the identity of the supposed "intelligent designer". Drafts of the text used "creation" or "creator" before being changed to "intelligent design" or "designer" after the Edwards v. Aguillard ruling.[3] This form of creationism, known as intelligent design creationism started in the early 1990s. This would eventually lead to another court case, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, which went to trial on September 26, 2005 and was decided in U.S. District Court on December 20, 2005 in favor of the plaintiffs, who charged that a mandate that intelligent design be taught was an unconstitutional establishment of religion. The 139 page opinion of Kitzmiller v. Dover was hailed as a landmark decision, firmly establishing that creationism and intelligent design were religious teachings and not areas of legitimate scientific research. Because the Dover school board chose not to appeal, the case never reached a circuit court or the U.S. Supreme Court.

Engle v Vitale (1966)/Lee v. Weisman (1982)

Background of the case The case was brought by the parents of students who complained the prayer to "Almighty God" contradicted their religious beliefs and was supported by groups opposed to the school prayer including Madalyn Murray O'Hair's American Atheists. The prayer in question was:

Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our country. Amen. The plaintiffs argued that opening the school day with such a prayer (even if students are not required to recite it) violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution (as applied to the states through the Fourteenth), which says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." The governments of twenty-two states1 signed on to an amicus curiae brief urging affirmance of the New York Court of Appeals decision that upheld the constitutionality of the prayer. The American Ethical Union, the American Jewish Committee, and the Synagogue Council of America each submitted briefs urging the Court to instead reverse and rule that the prayer was unconstitutional.

The Decision The court decided that government-directed prayer in public schools was an unconstitutional violation of the Establishment Clause. This was decided in a vote of 6-1, with Justice White unable to participate because he was not yet a member of the court during oral arguments and Justice Frankfurter not participating for unknown reasons.

Black's majority opinion Justice Hugo Black, writing for the majority, pointed out that the prayer is a religious activity by the very nature of its being a prayer. The majority further ruled that prescribing such a religious activity for school children is inconsistent with the Establishment Clause. That is, the program was created by government officials to promote a religious belief and therefore not permissible.

In response to the defendant's claims that: (a) the prayer does not respect any specific established religion; and (b) the prayer is voluntary, Black's opinion held that neither of these claims frees it from contradicting the Establishment Clause. The opinion held that the fact that it promotes a religion is sufficient to conclude it is in violation, even if that promotion is not coercive. Furthermore, the opinion held that the fact that the prayer is vaguely worded enough to not promote any particular religion is not a sufficient defense, as it does still promote a family of religions (those that recognize "Almighty God"), which is also a violation of the Establishment Clause.

Stewart's dissent In his dissent, Stewart listed the religious references present at the top of all three branches of the federal government and on American coins, in the National Anthem, in the Pledge of Allegiance, and in one of the court's recent decisions (Zorach v. Clauson). He argued that neither these examples nor the voluntary prayer in New York established a religion. Subsequent History Engel became the basis for several subsequent decisions limiting government-directed prayer in school. In Wallace v. Jaffree (1985), the Supreme Court ruled Alabama's law permiting one minute for prayer or meditation was unconstitutional. In Lee v. Weisman (1992), the court prohibited clergy-led prayer at high school graduation ceremonies. Lee v. Weisman, in turn, was a basis for Santa Fe ISD v. Doe, in which the Court extended the ban to school sanctioning of student-directed prayer at high school football games.

On January 24, 2002, students and staff at Juneau-Douglas High School were permitted to leave classes[nb 1] to watch the Olympic Torch pass by. Joseph Frederick, who was late for school that day, joined some friends on the sidewalk across from the high school, off school grounds. [5] Frederick and his friends waited for the television cameras so they could unfurl a banner reading "BONG HITS 4 JESUS". Frederick was quoted as saying he'd first seen the phrase on a snowboard sticker.[6] When they displayed the banner, then-principal Deborah Morse ran across the street and seized it.[nb 2] Morse initially suspended Frederick for five days for violating the school district's anti-drug policy, but later increased the suspension to ten days after Frederick quoted Thomas Jefferson.[nb 3] Frederick administratively appealed his suspension to the superintendent, who denied his appeal but limited it to the time Frederick had already spent out of school prior to his appeal to the superintendent (eight days). Frederick then appealed to the Juneau School Board, which upheld the suspension on March 19, 2002. [edit] District court On April 25, 2002, Frederick filed a civil rights lawsuit (under 42 U.S.C. § 1983) against Morse and the school board, claiming they violated his federal and state constitutional rights to free speech.[2] He sought a declaratory relief (for a declaratory judgment that his First Amendment rights had been violated), injunctive relief (for an injunction to remove the reference to the ten day suspension from his school records), and monetary awards (compensatory damages, punitive damages, and attorney's fees).[8] The United States District Court for the District of Alaska dismissed Frederick's case on summary judgment.[9] The district court reasoned that Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser, as opposed to Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, governed Frederick's school speech. Under this premise, the Court ruled that, given the stipulated facts, Morse and the school board had not infringed Frederick's First Amendment rights, because Morse had reasonably interpreted the banner as contravening the school's policies on drug abuse prevention.[8][nb 4] [edit] Ninth Circuit The Ninth Circuit reversed the decision of the District Court. The unanimous panel decision was written by Judge Andrew Kleinfeld.[10] First, the Court decided that the incident should be interpreted under school-speech doctrines, even though Frederick was standing across the street, and not on school grounds.[nb 5] Thus, for Judge Kleinfeld, "the question comes down to whether a school may, in the absence of concern about disruption of educational activities, punish and censor non-disruptive, off-campus speech by students during school-authorized activities because the speech promotes a social message contrary to the one favored by the school. The answer under controlling, long-existing precedent is plainly 'No.'"[11] To reach this determination, the Court inquired whether Frederick's constitutional rights were violated.[nb 6]. The Court, in holding (contra the District Court) that Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District provided the controlling analysis, distinguished Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser and Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier. The Court explained: “ Fraser holds that high school students's rights to free speech in school are not coextensive with adults's rights, and "pervasive sexual innuendo" that is "plainly offensive . . . to any mature person" can be marked off as impermissible incivility within the school context. 12 Fraser focuses upon the sexual nature of the offensiveness in the in-school speech that can be punished, as contrasted with the "political viewpoint" of the speech protected in Tinker. 13 Our case differs from Fraser in that Frederick's speech was not sexual (sexual speech can be expected to stimulate disorder among those new to adult hormones), and did not disrupt a school assembly. Also, it is not so easy to distinguish speech about marijuana from political speech in the context of a state where referenda regarding marijuana legalization repeatedly occur and a controversial state court decision on the topic had recently issued. 14 The phrase "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" may be funny, stupid, or insulting, depending on one's point of view, but it is not "plainly offensive" in the way sexual innuendo is.

Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier is similarly distinguishable. In Kuhlmeier, the Supreme Court held that high school students did not have a First Amendment right to publish articles on pregnancy and divorce in a school newspaper over the principal's objection, where the newspaper was produced in a class on journalism, edited by the journalism teacher as part of the teaching of the class, and paid for with school money. 16 The Court distinguished Tinker on the ground that "the question whether the First Amendment requires a school to tolerate particular student speech -- the question that we addressed in Tinker -- is different from the question whether the First Amendment requires a school affirmatively to promote particular student speech." 17 This student newspaper was "part of the school curriculum." 18 Exclusion of any First Amendment duty to "promote" a student viewpoint [**14] means that a school necessarily retains authority to refuse to "sponsor" speech such as Frederick's, which arguably promotes drug use. 19 Kuhlmeier does not control the case at bar, however, because Frederick's pro-drug banner was not sponsored or endorsed by the school, nor was it part of the curriculum, nor did it take place as part of an official school activity. Kuhlmeier might apply had Frederick insisted on making his "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" banner in art class, but that is not what the record shows. His display [*1120] took place out of school while students were released so that they could watch a Coca-Cola and Olympics activity.[12] ” [edit] Public response Juneau school district superintendent Peggy Cowan stated, "My concern is that [the court's ruling] could compromise our ability to send a consistent message against the use of illegal drugs."[13] To promote drugs is utterly inconsistent with the educational mission of the school. The court has spoken more broadly with respect to the need to defer to school officials in identifying the educational mission. We know that there are constitutional limits (to lawful political expression). Those limits are captured in Tinker. A passive pure political speech that reflects on the part of the school board a standardless discretionary effort to squelch any kind of controversial discussion, that casts a pall of orthodoxy over the class room: we are light years away from that.[22] Opinions Opinion of the court Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority, concluded that the school officials did not violate the First Amendment by confiscating the pro-drug banner and suspending the student responsible for it. After reciting the background in Part I of the opinion, in Part II he determined that "school speech" doctrine should apply because Frederick's speech occurred "at a school event"; Part III determined that the speech was "reasonably viewed as promoting illegal drug use"; and Part IV, inquired whether a principal may legally restrict that speech, concluding that she could—under the three existing First Amendment school speech precedents, other Constitutional jurisprudence relating to schools, and a school's "important—indeed, perhaps compelling interest" in deterring drug use by students. The speech falls under school speech jurisprudence First, Roberts determined that the Court should analyze Frederick's speech under the comparatively strict doctrine of "school speech" -- rejecting "at the outset" Frederick's contention that the case should instead be considered under ordinary free-speech jurisprudence.[23] While conceding that past precedent reflects "some uncertainty at the outer boundaries as to when courts should apply school-speech precedents",[24] Roberts added: "but not on these facts."[23] Roberts reiterated the circumstances, then explained: "Under these circumstances, we agree with the superintendent that Frederick cannot 'stand in the midst of his fellow students, during school hours, at a school-sanctioned activity and claim he is not at school.'"[23] Principal reasonably interpreted that speech Next, Roberts determined that the principle's conclusion that Frederick's banner "advocated the use of illegal drugs" was reasonable. Acknowledging that the banner's message was "cryptic", nevertheless it was undeniably a "reference to illegal drugs".[25] In reaching this conclusion, Roberts contrasted "the paucity of alternative meanings the banner might bear" against the fact that the two immediately available interpretations of the words support this conclusion: “ First, the phrase could be interpreted as an imperative: “[Take] bong hits …”—a message equivalent, as Morse explained in her declaration, to “smoke marijuana” or “use an illegal drug.” Alternatively, the phrase could be viewed as celebrating drug use—“bong hits [are a good thing],” or “[we take] bong hits”. ” And even if that second interpretation does not support the principle's conclusions that the banner advocated the use of illegal drugs, “ we discern no meaningful distinction between celebrating illegal drug use in the midst of fellow students and outright advocacy or promotion. See Guiles v. Marineau, 461 F. 3d 320, 328 (CA2 2006) (discussing the present case and describing the sign as “a clearly pro-drug banner”) ” Wrapping up this discussion, Roberts rejected the two alternative accounts for Frederick's speech provided in the dissent: first, the dissent noted that Frederick "just wanted to get on television," which it characterized as a “credible and uncontradicted explanation for the message." Roberts rejoined: "But that is a description of Frederick’s motive for displaying the banner; it is not an interpretation of what the banner says." Second, the dissent emphasized the importance of political speech and the need to foster “national debate about a serious issue.” Roberts rejoined that "not even Frederick argues that the banner conveys any sort of political or religious message;" "this is plainly not a case about political debate over the criminalization of drug use or possession." First Amendment permits schools to restrict such speech Finally, Roberts inquired whether a principal may restrict such speech. He concluded that she can.[26] He began by reviewing the court's school speech jurisprudence: • First, Roberts recapitulated that student expression may be suppressed only if school officials reasonably conclude that it will "materially and substantially disrupt the work and discipline of the school" -- observing however that this doctrine came from a case (Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist.) in which the students were engaging in "political speech" in "a silent, passive expression of opinion, unaccompanied by any disorder or disturbance" (wearing armbands, to express “disapproval of the Vietnam hostilities and their advocacy of a truce, to make their views known, and, by their example, to influence others to adopt them.” Id., at 514), and in which "[t]he only interest the Court discerned underlying the school’s actions was the “mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint,” or “an urgent wish to avoid the controversy which might result from the expression." Roberts commented on this opinion with a quote from Virginia v. Black -- that political speech is “at the core of what the First Amendment is designed to protect.” 538 U. S. 343, 365 (2003). • Second, Roberts cited Bethel School Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser. The jurisprudence of Fraser is controversial, but Roberts declining to apply or resolve the disputed holding of that case ("We need not resolve this debate to decide this case"); instead, he explained that "[f]or present purposes, it is enough to distill from Fraser two basic principles":

Tinker v. Des Moines (1969) Background Summary and Questions • • John and Mary Beth Tinker attended public school in Des Moines, Iowa. In December of 1965 a community group in Des Moines decided to protest American involvement in the Vietnam War by wearing black armbands. The Tinkers agreed to wear their black armbands to school. However, principals in the school district, aware of the students' plans created a rule that any student wearing an armband to school would be suspended unless the student removed the armband. Although the Tinkers knew about this rule, they decided to come to school wearing armbands anyway. After refusing to take the armbands off, John and Mary Beth Tinker were sent home by the principal. Their suspension lasted until they agreed to come back to school without the armbands.

The Tinkers filed a suit in the U.S. District Court to stop the school principals from enforcing the rule in the future. Although the District Court said that this type of protest was a form of expression protected under the First Amendment's freedom of speech clause, the Court sided with the school officials, saying that the rule was needed to "prevent the disturbance of school activities." The Tinkers appealed their case to the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, but they lost. The Tinkers decided to appeal the case to the Supreme Court of the United States.

The fundamental question of the case came down to this: Does the First Amendment's promise of free speech extend to the symbolic speech of public school students? And, if so, in what circumstances is that symbolic speech protected? The First Amendment to the Constitution says, "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech." The Fourteenth Amendment extends this rule to state government as well, of which schools are a part. However, the First Amendment does not say which kinds of speech are protected. It also does not specify what types of expressive actions should be considered as speech.

The question of what kind of speech or action is protected under the First Amendment has been considered many times by the Supreme Court of the United States. Generally, the Court has held that the First Amendment protects adult symbolic speech that does not harm or threaten to harm. However, at the time of Tinker, it was unclear whether students' rights in this area were different.

In 1968 the Supreme Court of the United States agreed to hear the Tinker's case and consider whether the Des Moines public schools ban on armbands was an unconstitutional violation of the students' right to free speech. The Court's decision in Tinker v. Des Moines was handed down in 1969.

Questions to Consider: Do you think that the school policy banning armbands was fair? Why or why not?

The students knew they would be suspended if they wore armbands to school and chose to do so anyway. Why do you think they ignored the rule?

The First Amendment says "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech." Why do you think the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that certain actions should have the same protection as verbal speech? Are these reasons valid?

Pretend that students in your school wanted to protest the school-wide ban on smoking. Should they be allowed to protest by wearing T-shirts that read "Up with 'Butts'!"? Why or why not?

Ingram v. Wright (1977)

The Facts in Ingraham

Old Jack Seaver would have fit perfectly into the administration at Drew Junior High in 1970-71. According to students, assistant principal Lemmie Deliford displayed brass knuckles as he patrolled the corridors. Solomon Barnes, another assistant to the principal, was said to sport both brass knuckles and a large wooden paddle at the school. One day, because fourteen year old James Ingraham was slow to leave the auditorium stage he was held face down on a table by Deliford and Barnes while the principal, Willie J. Wright, hit him on the buttocks at least twenty times with the paddle. Later that day Ingraham's mother took him to a hospital where painful bruises on his backside were diagnosed as a hematoma. A doctor prescribed ice packs, pain pills, sleeping pills, and a laxative and advised Ingraham to rest at home for at least a week. More than a week after the beating, another doctor examined him and found that the hematoma was still "swollen, tender, and purplish in color" and was discharging fluid. This doctor prescribed rest at home for an additional seventy-two hours. Ingraham could not sit comfortably for about three weeks. 2

Ingraham was not the only student to feel the sting of the paddle. Roosevelt Adams was paddled on about ten different occasions during the year. Once, in a hair-raising episode in a bathroom, he was whacked by Barnes on the leg, arm, back and neck. Another time, for an infraction which Adams claims he did not commit, Wright hit him on the wrist. A doctor prescribed pain pills and an ice pack for the resulting swelling. Adams could not use the arm for about a week. Daniel Lee, who claimed to be an innocent bystander to a paddling incident, was asked by Barnes to bend down and "get a little piece of the board." Barnes rapped Lee on the hand four or five times; the hand was fractured, enlarged and disfigured. For the grievous infraction of standing up in the study hall to wipe some foreign matter off the seat of his chair, Rodney Williams was beaten on the head and back with a paddle and whipped with a belt. Williams was out of school for about a week to undergo surgery to remove a lump on the side of his head caused by the beating. Other beatings by Deliford and Wright caused Williams to cough blood and receive treatment at a hospital.

The Supreme Court Decision

The Supreme Court granted certiorari on the questions of cruel and unusual punishment and procedural due process while denying review of the question of whether corporal punishment was so arbitrary capricious and unrelated to any legitimate educational objective that it violated the concept of substantive due processes.'13 In a 5-4 decision issued on April 19, 1977, the Court affirmed the en banc decision of the Fifth Circuit.' 14 Mr. Justice Powell, writing for Chief Justice Burger and Justices Stewart, Blackmun and Rehnquist, first examined the common law tradition permitting the reasonable use of corporal punishment by public school teachers. Next he noted that of the twenty-three states which have enacted legislation on corporal punishment, only two (Massachusetts and New Jersey) have banned it, while the remainder have retained the common law standard or modified it only slightly. 15

With this "background of historical and contemporary approval of reasonable corporal punishment," Powell plunged into the constitutional issues of the case. Regarding the cruel and unusual punishment clause, he noted that the derivation of the language goes back to the English Bill of Rights of 1869 and was prompted by an "exclusive concern" for the "conduct of judges in enforcing the criminal law."16 Powell observed that this has also been the paramount concern of the U.S. Supreme Court in interpreting the Eighth Amendment. He could find no case outside the criminal process where the Court has ruled the Eighth Amendment to be applicable. Although Powell acknowledged that the Court has on several occasions stated that the meaning of the cruel and unusual punishment clause may evolve "as public opinion becomes enlightened by a humane justice," he asserted that any such evolution should not take the Eighth Amendment beyond the realm of criminal punishment.17 Moreover, and most important for this analysis, Powell concluded: "The schoolchild has little need for the protection of the Eighth Amendment."18 He listed a panoply of safeguards which "effectively remedy and deter" excessive corporal punishment. Among these are the openness of the school, the support of the student by family and friends, the constant accompaniment of other students and teachers, and the constraints imposed by potential civil and criminal liability.

Turning to procedural due process, Powell found that insofar as corporal punishment involves restraint and physical punishment, it implicates a liberty interest entitled to due process protection. These procedures should "minimize the risk of wrongful punishment and provide for the resolution of disputed questions of justification."19 These standards are fully met, in Powell's view, by existing procedures in state law. In Florida, for example, the teacher must confer with the principal before inflicting corporal punishment. Following the punishment, the teacher could be personally liable for damages in a civil tort suit or be prosecuted for the crime of assault and battery. Powell asserted that these safeguards "may be viewed as affording substantially greater protection" 20 than the procedures prior to a short-term suspension as mandated by the court in Goss v. Lopez. 21 Moreover, according to Powell, the imposition of procedural safeguards on the administration of corporal punishment could have deleterious effects on discipline in the schools. If a teacher's recommendation to paddle a student was rejected at a hearing, Powell felt that there would be a "consequent impairment of the teacher's ability to maintain discipline in the classroom...." 22 Individual teachers and entire school systems might abandon corporal punishment in favor of disciplinary measures which they believe are less effective. This might exacerbate the already serious disciplinary problem in the nation's schools, as documented recently by a Congressional committee.23 Therefore, while procedural safeguards might "marginally" reduce the risk of unwarranted corporal punishment, Powell concluded that the costs are far too great to justify such "a significant intrusion into an area of primary educational responsibility." 24

New Jersey v. TLO 1984 Piscataway Township High School freshmen were caught smoking cigarettes in the bathroom. Smoking at the school in itself was not prohibited; however, students were only supposed to smoke in a designated smoking area. The teacher took the two girls to the principal's office, in which they met with the assistant vice principal, Theodore Choplick. Choplick questioned them about violating a school rule by smoking in the bathroom. The first girl admitted to smoking, but the other girl – known as Tracy Lois Odem (name not confirmed, as her rights were protected due to age) – denied smoking in the bathroom and stated she had never smoked in her life. Choplick then asked Tracy Lois Odem into his private office and demanded she hand over her purse. Upon opening the purse he observed a pack of cigarettes; while removing the cigarettes he noticed a package of rolling papers. Based on his experience, the possession of rolling papers of high school students was closely tied to the use of marijuana. Choplick then began a more thorough search for the evidence of drugs. His search revealed a small amount of marijuana, a pipe, empty plastic bags, a large quantity of money in $1 bills, an index card that appeared to list students who owed Tracy Lois Odem money, and two letters that implicated Tracy Lois Odem in dealing marijuana. The principal then called the police and the girl's mother, who voluntarily drove her to the police station. Opinion of the Court The Supreme Court of the United States, in a 6–3 decision issued by Justice White, ruled that the search and seizure by school officials without a warrant was constitutional as long as the search was deemed reasonable given the circumstances. The Court reaffirmed that there is a balancing between the individual's—even a child's—legitimate expectation of privacy and the school's interest in maintaining order and discipline. Accordingly, school officials do not need a warrant to search the belongings of students, but they do require a "reasonable suspicion". Therefore, her possession of any cigarettes was relevant to whether or not she was being truthful, and since she had been caught in the bathroom and taken directly to the office, it was reasonable to assume she had the cigarettes in her purse. Thus, the vice-principal had reasonable cause to suspect a school rule had been broken, and more than just a "hunch" to search the purse. When the vice-principal was searching for the cigarettes, the drug-related evidence was in plain view. Plain view is an exception to the warrant requirement of the 4th Amendment. Thus, the reasonable search for cigarettes led to some of the drug related material being discovered, which justified a further search (including the zippered compartments inside the bag) resulting in the discovery of the drugs and other evidence. The Supreme Court overturned the New Jersey Supreme Court ruling. The Court also stated that states have a duty to provide a safe school environment.

New Jersey v. T. L. O.

Distinguished from collaborative efforts In footnote 4 of the majority opinion, the Court noted that its holding applied only to school authorities acting on their own, not for any searches that were conducted in concert with or at the behest of law enforcement agencies. As that issue had not been raised by this case, the Court specifically noted that it was expressing no opinion on the subject. Concurrence In a separate, concurring opinion, Justice Powell (joined by Justice O'Connor) stated that while he agreed with the Court's opinion, he felt that students in primary and secondary educational settings should not be afforded the same level of protection for search and seizures as adults and juveniles in non-school settings. Dissent Justice Brennan, joined by Justice Marshall, agreed with the majority's reasoning regarding a balancing approach to school searches. He disagreed, however, with the new standard set down by the Court, which he felt was a departure from the traditional "probable cause" approach. He explained: "Today's decision sanctions school officials to conduct fullscale searches on a "reasonableness" standard whose only definite content is that it is not the same test as the "probable cause" standard found in the text of the Fourth Amendment. In adopting this unclear, unprecedented, and unnecessary departure from generally applicable Fourth Amendment standards, the Court carves out a broad exception to standards that this Court has developed over years of considering Fourth Amendment problems. Its decision is supported neither by precedent nor even by a fair application of the "balancing test of power" it proclaims in this very opinion."

Goss v. Lopez 1975

9 named students, including a student named Dwight Lopez, were suspended from Marion-Franklin High School for 10 days for destroying school property and disrupting the learning environment. In fact, Lopez testified that at least 75 other students were also suspended from his school on the same day. Ohio Law § 3313.66 empowered the school principal to suspend a student for a period of 10 days or expel them. The law required that the student and parents be notified of the action 24 hours before and be given the reason. If the student was expelled the student could appeal to the Board of Education. However §3313.66 gave no such allowances if the student were suspended. A three-judge District Court struck down the law, saying that it violated the students' right to due process of law. The United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio held that: “ Having chosen to extend the right to an education to people of appellate class generally, Ohio may not withdraw that right on grounds of misconduct, absent fundamentally fair procedures to determine whether the misconduct has occurred, and must recognize a student's legitimate entitlement to a public education as a property interest that is protected by the Due Process Clause, and that may not be taken away for misconduct without observing minimum procedures required by that Clause. ” —419 U.S. 565 (1975), pp. 573–74.

While the District Court reprimanded the school for its violation of the 14th Amendment. It gave the school board latitude in creating a new policy, only stating that "minimum requirements of notice and a hearing prior to suspension, except in emergency situations." The case was appealed by the school to the Supreme Court. Holding The court, split 5-4, held that the state had violated due process by removing the process of a hearing. The court argued that the State of Ohio had made an education a fundamental right (Ohio law, Rev.Code Ann. § 3313.64), while it was not constitutionally mandated to do so, it had done so and was therefore now obligated to do so. The court also stated that suspending a student had potential to seriously harm their reputation and effect their future employment and education. Therefore that state had no authority to remove that right without due process of law and that the serious issue of suspension was not de minimis. The court rejected the argument of the school district that education was not a fundamental right because it was created at the expense of the taxpayers. The court stated that protected interests are not created by the Constitution but by its institutions (Board of Regents v. Roth). The court reiterated the principle, first clearly formulated in Tinker v. Des Moines School Dist. but established in a long line of decisions before that case, that students "do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse door" (internal quotation marks omitted). Dissent Justice Powell wrote the court's dissent. He argued that the court was for the first time interfering in how schools run their own classrooms. He criticized the courts findings that due process was violated because education was a fundamental right. In his dissent Powell stated that had §3313.64 not existed and education was not mandated then the court's argument would be moot. He also cited San Antonio Independent School Dist. v. Rodriguez in its decision that education was not a constitutional right and therefore questioned the court's decision to see that Ohio had created it. The dissent also cited the landmark Tinker case in which the court ruled that students had the right to free speech, but it also said that the school officials had a compelling interest in enforcing order. In Goss v. Lopez one of the students had attacked a Police Office and Powell found that the school had a compelling interest in controlling the school. Finally he argued that minors should and are treated differently under the law and that the court was turning its back on precedent. ..

Bethel v Frasier

Bethel School District v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675 (1986), was a United States Supreme Court decision involving free speech and public schools. On April 26, 1983, Matthew Fraser, a Spanaway, Washington, high school senior, gave a speech nominating classmate Jeff Kuhlman for Associated Student Body Vice President. The speech was filled with sexual innuendos, but not obscenity, prompting disciplinary action from the administration. Fraser's speech was as follows: "I know a man who is firm - he's firm in his pants, he's firm in his shirt, his character is firm - but most [of] all, his belief in you the students of Bethel, is firm. Jeff Kuhlman is a man who takes his point and pounds it in. If necessary, he'll take an issue and nail it to the wall. He doesn't attack things in spurts - he drives hard, pushing and pushing until finally - he succeeds. Jeff is a man who will go to the very end - even the climax, for each and every one of you. So please vote for Jeff Kuhlman, as he'll never come between us and the best our school can be." [Long pause after the word "come" on oral delivery, but no comma in the written version, according to Matthew N Fraser] After appealing through the grievance procedures of his school, he was still found to be in violation of a school policy against disruptive behavior. These grounds later evolved to include obscenity at trial, but obscenity, according to Fraser, was not listed as grounds for his punishment in his initial hearing with school vice-principal Christy Blair. Fraser was suspended from school for two days as a result, was prohibited from speaking at his graduation ceremony, and his name was stricken from the ballot used to elect three graduation speakers. Fraser nonetheless was selected by a write-in vote which placed him second overall among the top three finishers, although Bethel High School administrators refused to accept the write-in vote as a valid result, and continued to deny Fraser the opportunity to speak at graduation. With approval from his parents and help from ACLU cooperating attorney Jeff Haley, Matt Fraser filed a lawsuit against the school authorities claiming a violation of his First Amendment right to free speech, and U.S. District Court judge Jack Tanner ruled in his favor. The school district then appealed to the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals which ruled in Fraser's favor with a broadly worded opinion. The school district asked the United States Supreme Court to consider the case and it agreed to do so. The US Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals in 7-2 vote to uphold the suspension, saying that the school district's policy did not violate the First Amendment. Chief Justice Warren Burger delivered the Court's opinion, in what ended up along with the Graham Rudmann decision to be the final case of the Burger Court era. Fraser refers to this as "the silver lining in the grim cloud of my defeat." Justices William J. Brennan and Harry Blackmun delivered concurring opinions, while Thurgood Marshall and John Paul Stevens dissented. Though the Court distinguished its 1969 decision Tinker v. Des Moines, which upheld the right for students to express themselves where their words are nondisruptive and could not be seen as connected with the school, the ruling in Fraser can be seen as a limitation on the scope of that ruling, prohibiting certain styles of expression that are sexually vulgar. Hazelwood School District et al. v. Kuhlmeier et al., 484 U.S. 260 (1988) The U.S. Supreme Court held for the first time that public school officials may impose some limits on what appears in school-sponsored student publications. The high school paper was published as part of a journalism class. The principal at Hazelwood, Robert Reynolds, usually reviewed the school paper before it was published, given to by the advisor of the paper, Howard Emerson, and in this case he deleted two pages that had been written for the next edition of the school paper. One of the deleted articles covered the issue of student/teen pregnancy and included interviews with three students who had become pregnant while attending school. (There was also an article about several students whose parents had been divorced, however the students' names were not disclosed in the article.) To keep the students' identity secret, the staff used pseudonyms instead of the students' names. The principal said he felt the anonymity of the students was not sufficiently protected and that the girls' discussion of their use or non-use of birth control was inappropriate for some of the younger students. An article about how a student's father was so bad in a divorce was one Reynolds didn't like because the father didn't get any kind of chance to defend himself or tell his side of the story. Basis The First Amendment's freedom of speech protections were not violated by the school district because the First Amendment protection for student expression described in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969), does not compel a public school to affirmatively sponsor speech that conflicts with its "legitimate pedagogical goals." The school-financed newspaper at issue was also not considered to be a public forum under the totality of circumstances present in the case, and therefore, its editors were entitled to a lower level of First Amendment protection than is applicable to independent student newspapers or those newspapers that have, by policy and practice, opened their pages to student opinion." Precedent Under the First Amendment, school officials can censor non-forum student newspapers when they can justify their decision by stating an educational purpose. However, this decision does not allow school officials to censor articles wantonly or based on personal opinion, as shown in Dean v. Utica. Some states have passed laws guaranteeing that non-forum newspapers, such as the Hazelwood East High School newspaper, are guaranteed the rights that the First Amendment describes.[1].