Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969), was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court that defined First Amendment rights of students in U.S. public schools. The Tinker test, also known as the "substantial disruption" test, is still used by courts today to determine whether a school's interest to prevent disruption infringes upon students' First Amendment rights.
Symbolic speech is a legal term in United States law used to describe actions that purposefully and discernibly convey a particular message or statement to those viewing it. Symbolic speech is recognized as being protected under the First Amendment as a form of speech, but this is not expressly written as such in the document. One possible explanation as to why the Framers did not address this issue in the Bill of Rights is because the primary forms for both political debate and protest in their time were verbal expression and published word, and they may have been unaware of the possibility of future people using non-verbal expression. Symbolic speech is distinguished from pure speech, which is the communication of ideas through spoken or written words or through conduct limited in form to that necessary to convey the idea.
Bethel School District v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675 (1986), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court upheld the suspension of a high school student who delivered a sexually suggestive speech at a school assembly. The case involved free speech in public schools.
Saxe v. State College Area School District, 240 F.3d 200, was a case decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit that ruled that the State College Area School District's policy restricting "unwelcome" and "offensive" speech on public school grounds violates the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause.
Milan Dale Smith Jr. is an American attorney and jurist serving as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Smith's brother, Gordon H. Smith, was a Republican U.S. Senator from 1997 to 2009. Milan Smith is neither a Republican nor a Democrat.
Dennis Jacobs is a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
David Brookman Smith, known professionally as D. Brooks Smith, is a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He was previously Chief Judge of both the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, and is the only judge in the history of the Third Circuit to have served as both a chief district judge and chief of the Court of Appeals. Since January 2022, Smith has served as Penn State Law's new jurist in residence.
Jerry Edwin Smith is an American attorney and jurist serving as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
In Guiles v. Marineau, 461 F.3d 320, cert. denied by 127 S.Ct. 3054 (2007), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States protect the right of a student in the public schools to wear a shirt insulting the President of the United States and depicting images relating to drugs and alcohol.
Doninger v. Niehoff, 527 F.3d 41 was a United States Court of Appeals case. The case was heard by a three-judge Second Circuit panel that included Judges Sonia Sotomayor, Loretta A. Preska, and Debra Livingston. The case involved a student at Lewis S. Mills High School in Connecticut who was barred from the student government after she called the superintendent and other school officials "douchebags" in a LiveJournal blog post written while off-campus that encouraged students to call an administrator and "piss her off more". Judge Livingston held that the district judge did not abuse his discretion in holding that the student's speech "foreseeably create[d] a risk of substantial disruption within the school environment," which is the precedent in the Second Circuit for when schools may regulate off-campus speech On October 31, 2011, the United States Supreme Court declined to grant certiorari on Ms. Doninger's appeal.
The issue of school speech or curricular speech as it relates to the First Amendment to the United States Constitution has been the center of controversy and litigation since the mid-20th century. The First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech applies to students in the public schools. In the landmark decision Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, the U.S. Supreme Court formally recognized that students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate".
Stephanos Bibas is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Before his appointment to the bench, Bibas was a professor of law and criminology at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he also served as director of its Supreme Court clinic.
Robert L. "Bob" Corn-Revere is an American First Amendment lawyer. Corn-Revere is the Chief Counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and was formerly a partner at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP in Washington, D.C.. He is regularly listed as a leading First Amendment and media law practitioner by The Best Lawyers in America (Woodward/White), SuperLawyers Washington, D.C., and by Chambers USA . Best Lawyers in America named him as Washington, D.C.’s 2017 “Lawyer of the Year” in the areas of First Amendment Law and Litigation – First Amendment. He was again named as Best Lawyers’ “Lawyer of the Year” for First Amendment Law for 2019 and 2021, and in Media Law for 2022.
Givhan v. Western Line Consolidated School District, 439 U.S. 410 (1979), is a United States Supreme Court decision on the free speech rights of public employees. The Court held unanimously in favor of a schoolteacher fired for her critical remarks in conversations with her principal. Justice William Rehnquist wrote the opinion, with a short concurrence by John Paul Stevens.
Hazelwood School District et al. v. Kuhlmeier et al., 484 U.S. 260 (1988), was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that held that public school curricular student newspapers that have not been established as forums for student expression are subject to a lower level of First Amendment protection than independent student expression or newspapers established as forums for student expression.
Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, 597 U.S. ___ (2022), is a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court in which the Court held, 6–3, that the government, while following the Establishment Clause, may not suppress an individual from engaging in personal religious observance, as doing so would violate the Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment.
Kowalski v. Berkeley County Schools, 652 F.3d 565 (2011), was a freedom of speech case of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit over the online speech of a public school student. The appeals court affirmed the decision of the district court that the student's suspension for online harassment of a fellow student was constitutional.
Planned Parenthood of Columbia/Willamette v. American Coalition of Life Activists, 290 F.3d 1058 (2002), was a freedom of speech case of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit over statements by anti-abortion activists who publicized personal information about specific abortion doctors, and indirectly suggested the possibility of violence against those individuals. The Ninth Circuit ultimately affirmed the decision of the United States District Court for the District of Oregon that the speech was a true threat that is not protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
