Meeting Goals

1
Meeting Goals

• Deepen working relationships within and across
  school teams
• Acquire skills and resources for use in
  institutionalizing school change
• Revisit and deepen understanding of First
  Amendment issues
• Share successes and work through struggles, both
  among and across leadership teams
• Plan for 2005-2006 school year.

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Weekend Norms

• Seek Understanding
• Support each others learning
• If you wonder it, ask it
• Make it safe to take risks
• Value our different perspectives.

3
How Free Should Students Be?Exploring Free
Expression Issues in Schools
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The First Amendment

• Congress shall make no law respecting an
  establishment of religion, or prohibiting the
  free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom
  of speech, of the press or the right of the
  people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the
  government for a redress of grievances.

5
The Future of the First Amendment?Knight
Foundation Survey January 2005

• Nearly three-fourths of high school students say
  either they don't know how they feel about the
  First Amendment or they take it for granted.
• Students (51) are less likely than adults (80)
  to think that people should be allowed to express
  unpopular opinions.
• Most administrators say student learning about
  journalism is a priority for their school, but
  less than 1 in 5 think it is a high priority, and
  just under a third say it is not a priority at
  all.

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How well do educators know the First Amendment?
Can you name any of the specific rights that are
guaranteed by the First Amendment? Freedom of
the Press 22 Freedom of Speech 73 Freedom
of Religion 25 Right to Petition 6 Right
of Assembly 18 Dont Know 19
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Do students in public schools have First
Amendment rights?

• ? Yes
• ? No
• ? It depends

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The First Amendment in Schools

• 1791 Congress shall make no law . . .
• 1908 Students suspended for poem critical of
  their teacher Such power is essential to the
  preservation of order, decency, decorum, and good
  government in the public schools.
• 1925 Gitlow v. New York First Amendment
  applies to states via Fourteenth Amendment

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The Fourteenth Amendment (1868)

• Section 1 No State shall make or enforce any
  law which shall abridge the privileges and
  immunities of citizens of the United States nor
  shall any state deprive any person of life,
  liberty, or property, without due process of law
  nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction
  the equal protection of the laws.

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Do the Rules Change for Teachers?

• And if so, how?

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Teacher Rights Responsibilities

• Tinker (1969) It can hardly be argued that
  either teachers or students shed their
  constitutional rights to freedom of speech or
  expression at the schoolhouse gate.
• Pickering (1968) The problem in any case is to
  arrive at a balance between the interests of the
  teacher, as a citizen . . . And the interest of
  the State, as an employer.

12
Is absolute neutrality on political matters
necessary from a classroom teacher?

• ? Yes
• ? No
• ? It depends

13
Free Expression or Coercion?
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Which of the following types of clothing are
protected forms of student expression?
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The Tinker StandardTinker v. Des Moines
Independent School Dist. (1969)

• Student speech cannot be censored as long as it
  does not materially disrupt class work or
  involve substantial disorder or invasion of the
  rights of others.

16
International Terrorist
17
Saving Your Ass
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The Fraser StandardBethel School District No.
403 v. Fraser (1986)

• Because school officials have an interest in
  teaching students the boundaries of socially
  appropriate behavior, they can censor student
  speech that is vulgar or indecent, even if it
  does not cause a material or substantial
  disruption.

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Heritage or Hate?
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Split Opinions

• School officials are not required to wait until
  disorder or invasion occurs. They merely need
  the existence of facts which might reasonably
  lead school officials to forecast substantial
  disruption.
• --Phillips v. Anderson School District, 1997
  (South Carolina)

• The plaintiffs wore the shirts to express a
  certain viewpoint and that viewpoint was easily
  ascertainable by an observer. . . . . The
  school board enforced the dress code in an uneven
  and viewpoint-specific manner, thereby violating
  core values of the First Amendment.
• --Castorina v. Madison County School Board ,
  2001 (Kentucky)

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Straight Pride.
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The Three Rs

• RIGHTS Inalienable
• RESPONSIBILITIES Mutual
• RESPECT Unconditional

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How Can Schools Be Both Free and Responsible?

• Be proactive, not reactive.
• Be authoritative, not authoritarian.
• Stress that how we debate, not just what we
  debate, is critical.

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A New Standard?

• Maintaining a school community of tolerance
  includes the tolerance of such viewpoints as
  expressed by Straight Pride. . . . The Court
  does not disregard the laudable intention of
  Principal Babbitt to create a positive social and
  learning environment by his decision, however,
  the constitutional implications and the difficult
  but rewarding educational opportunity created by
  such diversity of viewpoint are equally as
  important and must prevail under the
  circumstances.
• Judge Donovan W. Frank Chambers v. Babbitt

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The Power of Student Voice

• In 1960, when students all over the
  South started sitting-in at lunch counters I
  knew that as they were sitting in, they were
  really standing up for the best in the American
  dream, and taking the whole nation back to those
  great wells of democracy which were dug deep by
  the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of
  Independence and the Constitution.