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Edu 210 Portfolio Artifact #4: Students Rights and Responsibilities

Abigail Childers

College of Southern Nevada

Edu 210, section 1001

Nancy Webb, M.Ed

April 12, 2020

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Bill Foster is filing suit against a large high school located in the Northwestern United

States with the focus of his freedom of expression right being violated. Recently the high school

has been having issues with local gang activity. The school banned wearing jewelry, earrings,

emblems, and things like athletic caps to avoid association with gang members. However Bill

Foster is not a part of a gang and does not participate in gang activities, so he thought he would

be fine wearing an earring to school, just trying to look good and impress the ladies. For this act

of self-expression, Foster was suspended. When looking for the right to uphold the restrictions

set against student speech and expression, the speech or expression must be disruptive to the

school or students, be harmful towards students, and or very vulgar.

One of the most popular freedoms of expression cases in a school is a case that took place

in 1968, known as the TINKER V. DES MOINES INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT. In

this case, A small group of children wanted to wear black armbands to school to raise awareness

about the Vietnam war. However, the school has suspended the students who wore an armband

until they return without one. At first, the courts ruled in favor of the School District but later on,

the Court of Appeals said “They were not disruptive and did not impinge upon the rights of

others. In these circumstances, their conduct was within the protection of the Free Speech Clause

of the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth.” (Tinker V. Des Moines

School District, 1968). It was confirmed that wearing an armband did not cause any harm to

other students, was not disruptive nor was it vulgar. Therefore the students remain the right to

their freedom of expression.

The court case that definitely helped pave the road for TINKER V. DES MOINES

SCHOOL BOARD would be BURNSIDE V. BYARS. This case took place in 1966 and was
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concerned with a group of about 30 or 40 students at Booker T. Washington High School who

were wearing “Freedom Buttons” to encourage the “one man one vote” slogan for political

equality. While the principle and some teachers tried to argue that the children were being

disruptive while passing out the buttons and talking more about the buttons than focusing on the

school work, there was no corroboration, so the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals believed that

forbidding the children to wear these buttons would be an infringement on their first and

fourteenth amendments of United States Constitution. In BURNSIDE V BYARS it is said “the

regulation forbidding the wearing of "freedom buttons" on school grounds is arbitrary and

unreasonable, and an unnecessary infringement on the students' protected right of free

expression.”(Burnside v. Byars, 1966). Before the “freedom Buttons” students were walking

around with other buttons of similar size but with different words like “his” or “hers” The

wearing of the “freedom buttons” did not disrupt actual class, did not cause any harm to students

nor did it contain any kinds of vulgarity.

Freedom of expression was deemed inappropriate and why: Moving onto a court case

with the exact same beginning scenario for BURNSIDE V BYARS is the case of BLACKWELL

V. ISSAQUENA COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION. In this case, around 30 students at

Henry Weather High School were wearing the “freedom buttons” but this gradually turned into

hundreds. The students were told not to wear the buttons but refused and were suspended,

however, while the students at Booker T. Washington High School were able to remain focused

on their studies and not disrupt the school day. The same could not be said for Henry Wether

High School “ the District Court was presented with evidence of numerous instances, which have

been set out in the statement of facts, where students conducted themselves in a disorderly
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manner, disrupted classroom procedure, interfered with the proper decorum and discipline of the

school and disturbed other students who did not wish to participate in the wearing of the

buttons.”( Blackwell v. Issaquena County Board of Education, 1966) In this case, the school day

was being disrupted, students were being harmed by being physically forced to put on the

buttons, and there was name-calling towards the teachers and students who did not want to

partake in the activity of wearing the buttons. So the Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit ruled in favor

of the school district not allowing their students to wear the “freedom buttons”

In this last case, we look at a 13-year-old boy at Williamstown Middle School. This case

is GUILES V. MARINEAU, a young boy named Zachary Guiles wears a t-shirt depicting

President George W. Bush as “ Chicken-In-Chief” with cocaine, and various images of other

drugs and alcohol. Zachary Guiles wore this shirt approximately once a week for two months and

would refuse to cover up the inappropriate images or flip it inside out. The court ruled in favor of

covering up the profanity and drugs and alcohol but once they were covered concluded that the

t-shirt was in dress code. “The United States District Court for the District of Vermont held that

the school's censorship was a permissible abridgment of Guiles' ​First Amendment​ rights.”(Guiles

V. Marineau,2006). So long as the vulgar pieces of the shirt remain covered, Guiles would be

permitted to wear the shirt to school. In comparison to the other cases, this case only has the

issue of vulgarity. It does not harm any other students nor does it disrupt the school day.

All of the cases that had determined that the freedom of expression had been violated

provided that there was no disruption in class, no students were harmed, and there was no kind of

vulgarity. Bill Foster was attending a school where wearing jewelry was not acceptable because

of the gang activities. Were these gang activities specifically linked towards wearing jewelry,
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hats, and earrings? That is unclear, however, because the school made the decision to not allow

anything of the like, Bill Foster was suspended. However unless Bill Foster's earring had a

middle finger or a cuss word as the actual jewelry, the school should not have suspended him.

His earring caused no actual harm to anyone, did not disrupt the learning of others, and assuming

it was a diamond or stud, was not vulgar.

Reference
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Burnside v. Byars, 363 F.2d 744 (5th Cir. 1966). (n.d.). Retrieved April 11, 2020, from

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/363/744/264045/

Circuit Judge. (1966, July 21). Blackwell v. Issaquena County Board of Educ. Retrieved April

11, 2020, from https://casetext.com/case/blackwell-v-issaquena-county-board-of-educ

FindLaw's United States Supreme Court case and opinions. (n.d.). Retrieved April 10, 2020,

from ​https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/393/503.html

Guiles v. Marineau - 461 F.3d 320 (2d Cir. 2006). (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/casebrief/p/casebrief-guiles-v-marineau

Manning, M. L., Baruth, L. G., & Lee, G. L. (2017). ​Multicultural Education of Children and

Adolescents​. Milton: Taylor and Francis.