Supreme Court Cases
First Amendment-
Case Facts:
Students wore anti-war bands to school, which in turn got them suspended from school. The students sued the school for impeding upon their free speech.
Students Arguments: 1st and 14th Amendment-free speech, they weren't hurting anyone.
School Arguments: 10th Amendment-allowed the school to suspend the kids in fear of endangering other student's health and academic well being
Supreme Court Decision: The students won. "Students do not shed their 1st Amendment rights at the school gates". As long as they were NOT disturbing any other students, they had the right to wear the arm bands.
Case Name: Flast VS. Cohnen
Case Facts: Flast sued because he claimed tax money was being used unconstitutionally, and being dispersed under the Elementary and Secondary Act.
-Separation of Church and State
-Tax payers DO NOT and SHOULD NOT pay for parochial schools
Arguments:
Flast- Pubic funds are not allowed to aid for religious schools
Cohnen- You cannot sue unless the outcome is personal
Supreme Court Decision:
Flast won, tax payers shouldn't have to pay and the separation of church and state
Case Name: Miami Herald Publishing VS. Tornillo
Case Facts: Tornillio tried running for Supreme Court and the Miami Herald would not publish his reply to a "diss" he had received in their paper.
Arguments:
Miami Herald: Someone said something bad, you would want to reply with the same number of space
it's only fair
Tornillo: Since many papers print some articles that have a lot of information, it becomes difficult for people to see a full range of views.
Questions speech and free press rights
Supreme Court Decision: Ruled in favor of Miami Herald. Reply law was not constitutional.
Case Name: Agostini VS. Felton
Case Facts: NYC public school teachers were not supposed to spend the extra time they had with disadvantaged children at religious schools. Religious schools have no government funding, and the Establishment Clause was working against them.
Arguments:
Agostini: Religion is being promoted in public schools now because the public school teachers are taking time out of their schedule to help religious school kids. It was a matter of Religion VS. State. Public teachers may change their teaching and it will not mix with public schools.
Frelton: Being taught irrelevant skills, and the government is not responsible for supervising so that state and church won't interact.
Supreme Court Decision: Public school teachers can help religious students.
Fourth Amendment-
Case Name: Mapp VS. Ohio
Case Facts: Cleveland said that Mapp was hiding a fugitive in her home.
"Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26, ET AL. v. Pico, By His Next
We, all, have the opportunity to voice our opinion on subjects that matter to us. The First Amendment grants us freedom of speech and expression. However, this was not provided to all students in 1968. During this time, there were three students in Des Moines, Iowa, who wore black armbands to school. These armbands were a symbol of protest against the United States involvement in the Vietnam War. After the Des Moines School District heard about this plan, they instituted a policy banning the wearing of armbands, leading to the suspension of students. A lawsuit has been filed against the Des Moines School District, stating how this principal goes against the students’ First Amendment rights. Thus, in the Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District case, Justice Abe Fortes determined the policy to ban armbands is against the students’ First Amendment rights. Yet, Justice Hugo Black dissented with this decision, determining the principal is permissible under the First Amendment.
This case involved a public high school student, Matthew Fraser who gave a speech nominating another student for a student elective office. The speech was given at an assembly during school as a part of a school-sponsored educational program in self-government. While giving the speech, Fraser referred to his candidate in what the school board called "elaborate, graphic, and explicit metaphor." After his speech, the assistant principal told Fraser that the school considered the speech a violation of the school's "disruptive-conduct rule." This prohibited conduct that interfered with the educational process, including obscene, profane language or gestures. After Fraser admitted he intentionally had used sexual innuendo in the speech, he was told that he would be suspended from school for three days, and his name would be removed from the list of the speakers at the graduation exercises.
Mary Beth Tinker was only thirteen years old in December of 1964 when she and four other students were suspended from school because they wore black armbands. The black armbands were a sign of protest against the Vietnam War. The school suspended the students and told them that they could not return to school until they agreed to take off the armbands. The students did not return to school until after the school’s Christmas break, and they wore black the rest of the year, as a sign of protest. The Tinker family, along with other supporters, did not think that the suspension was constitutional and sued the Des Moines Independent Community School District. The Supreme Court’s majority decision was a 7-2 vote that the suspension was unconstitutional (Tinker V. Des Moines).
In the 1960s, some Americans were against sending troops to Vietnam because of the many lives risked; others were against sending troops because of the money it would cost. In 1965, a group of Des Moines high school students met up and agreed to wear black armbands that following week to protest against the Vietnam War. Rumors got around to school principles. School Principals passed a rule forbidding armbands to be worn at school to prevent disruption in the classrooms. In December, five students wore armbands ignoring the school’s new rule. They were asked to take off the armbands, and they refused resulting in suspension ("Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist"). Then the parents of those complained that the first amendment rights of those students were violated. This case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled that students still have their rights of freedom of speech and expression in school in a 7-2 vote in favor of Tinker (“TINKER v. DES MOINES INDEPENDENT COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT”).
Student court cases against schools, or vice versa, are not as uncommon as they may seem. Tinker v. Des Moines was a court case that ended in 1969 regarding students protesting the Vietnam War. The three students involved in the trial wore black armbands to school, which was prohibited, and were suspended. Since the students felt that their First Amendment right was abused by the school therefore they took the issue to a local court, then eventually the Supreme Court. The case has left a mark on First Amendment rights for students since then. The Tinker v. Des Moines court case impacted the United States by questioning the First Amendment in public schools, spreading awareness of student rights, and by challenging future court cases using
In December 1965, an issue was caused by teachers’ in violating students’ freedom of speech. In December some students from Des Moines Independent Community School District, in Iowa were suspended for wearing black armbands to protest against the American Government’s war policy in support Vietnam (Richard, Clayton, and Patrick).The school district pressed a complaint about it, although the students caused no harm to anyone. Students should be able to voice their opinions without the consequences of the school district.
Mrs. Moreno and the other plaintiffs in this case believes religious education should be the responsibility of parents and religious communities, and not the public schools to which she sends her children (ACLU, 2007). Additionally, Mrs. Moreno and the other plaintiffs’ feels the use of their tax dollars to promote and endorse religion in the public school system is unconstitutional (ACLU, 2007).
20 May 2014. This article shows a majority of the cases that are relevant to the topic and research questions; it clearly shows the articles that are involved with public schools and how and what they did. It helps answer that research question because it shows that some of the schools are capable of bypassing the system, but sometimes get overturned. Paulson, Ken. A.
In 1787 Article three of the constitution created the Supreme Court, but not until 1789 was it configured. The way it was originally set up was with one Chief Justice and five associate judges, with all six members being appointed for life. This court serves as the “supreme law of the land”, it has the power to determine if state or federal laws are in conflict with how the Court interprets the constitution.
Since 39 percent of students are enrolled in parochial schools, I think that having public funds to support activities like transportation, books, standardized testing and scoring, diagnostic services and therapeutic and remedial services is fine since with these the government is not actually advocating for the religion (262-263). Seen the cases that are related to public funds provided for private education in the U.S. Supreme court, I do see that repeatedly there has been an attempt to having “excessive entanglement”. When the government starts to get involve in trying to provide funds for schools like we can observe in the Lemon v. Kurtzman is when a conflict occurs (263). It is hard to tell when the establishment clause tolerates since there are not many specifics and falls under the judgment of people, but when the government starts to get to involve in creating a school district for a particular religion (e.g. Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet) it clearly conflict with the clause.
Until the early 1960s, religion was accepted in most public school systems across our nation. One of the main purposes for school in early America was for religious purposes (Prothero). Benjamin Franklin stated, "It is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand." Thomas Jefferson stated, "The question isn't what religion is true. The question is what religious traditions do we need to know something about in order to be an effective citizen." Something that can be beneficial to our nation should not be taken away. Even though religion offends some people, it should be allowed in public schools because of its influence on America and western civilizations, and its ability to help form closer relationships.
Kids, in elementary school and middle school especially, are constantly being bombarded with propaganda. People love to push things on other people because, Heaven forbid, someone disagrees with them. One particular issue is religion and the role it plays in schools. Some teachers and parents are completely against any religious activity at their child’s school and other teachers and parents want everything to do with religion in schools. A big part of the debate includes the Establishment Clause of the 1st amendment and the 1st amendment itself. In 1971, in the Lemon v. Kurtzman Supreme Court hearing, it was decided that there are three questions that need to be answered to decide if something goes against the Establishment clause; is there or will there ever have a secular purpose, does it advance or inhibit religion, and does it require the government to get involved with religion. (Marshall 128) This seems pretty straight forward. It makes sure that the government is protecting American’s freedom of religion and keeps the government out as much as possible. Then in 1973 in Miller v. California it was held that the 1st amendment doesn’t ...
This plainly states that public school teachers, principals, and boards are required to be religiously neutral. They may not promote a particular religion as being superior to any other, and may not promote religion in general as superior to a secular approach to life. They also may not promote secularism in general as superior to a religious approach to life, be antagonistic to religion in general or a particular religious belief, be antagonistic to secularism, and they must neither advance nor inhibit religion (Religion in Public).
In the aid to church-based schools, one of the first interpretations of the Establishment Clause began in 1947 in Everson v Board of Education. With voting 5 to 4 “the Court upheld a state law to reimburs...