Tinker v. Des Moines: Student Rights

Mary Beth Tinker & her mother

In 1965, five students at public schools in Des Moines wore black armbands to school to protest the war in Vietnam. They were subsequently suspended from school. John Tinker, Mary Beth Tinker, and Christopher Eckhardt challenged the suspension in court as a violation of a student’s right to free speech. In a landmark decision in 1969, the United States Supreme Court agreed with them and ruled that the Constitution guarantees public school students a right to symbolic, nondisruptive political expression.

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