About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

LOG IN
LOG IN


48 Drake L. Rev. 527 (1999-2000)
Students Do Leave Their First Amendment Rights at the Schoolhouse Gates: What's Left of Tinker

handle is hein.journals/drklr48 and id is 537 raw text is: STUDENTS DO LEAVE THEIR FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS AT THE SCHOOLHOUSE GATES: WHAT'S LEFT OF TINKER? Erwin Chemerinsky* I. Introduction .................................................................................... 527 I. Competing Visions of Students' Rights and School Authority in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District .... 530 III. The Supreme Court and Students' Rights Since Tinker ................. 535 A. Supreme Court Free Speech Cases Since Tinker ..................... 535 B. Supreme Court Decisions Concerning Other Students' Rights Since Tinker ................................................. 539 C. Does Tinker Survive? .............................................................. 541 IV. Student Speech in the Lower Courts After Tinker ......................... 542 V . C onclusion ..................................................................................... 545 I. INTRODUCTION Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District is the most important Supreme Court case in history protecting the constitutional rights of students.I The decision is perhaps best remembered for its ringing pronouncement: It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.2 This sentence powerfully conveys schools are not institutions immune from constitutional scrutiny: students retain their constitutional freedoms even when they cross the threshold into the school. Tinker was decided in 1969,3 the last year of the Warren Court.4 Chief Justice Earl Warren already had announced his resignation and was soon to be replaced by the much more conservative Warren Burger.5 The author of the * Sydney M. Irmas Professor of Public Interest Law, Legal Ethics, and Political Science, University of Southern California. I want to thank Alexis Lury for her excellent research assistance. 1. Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Community Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503 (1969). 2. Id. at506. 3. Id. at 503. 4. EDwARD L BARRErr, JR. ETr AL, CoNsTrrUTIoNAL LAw 1692 (1989). 5. Id at 1693.