Tinker vs. Des Moines actually turned out in favor of the students, who most certainly WERE allowed to wear those anti-war armbands.
Yes and no.
Tinker v Des Moines came out in favor of the students at that school for that specific case. But the problem is the problem with every student-related Supreme Court case (except the Pledge of Allegiance one): it sets a low boundary between what is and is not allowed, and gives schools the ability to argue past the issue if it ever arises again.
Here's what I mean:
In Tinker v Des Moines, they established that wearing black armbands in the school was a form of passive political speech, and was not disruptive to the learning environment. Tinker also won because the school enacted the rule against black armbands
after people had made the decision to start wearing them in protest of the war.
However, after that, all a school had to say was, "It is
disruptive to the learning environment" to be safe. After that, any kid with bright orange liberty spike haircuts could get in trouble for being disruptive to the learning environment because his hair is a) too distracting or b) a safety hazard. My Law & Criminal Justice teacher told me of an issue where a very gelled-and-spiky-haired student tried to protest when the principal brought him to the office--the principal grabbed a sheet of paper in both hands, brought it down on the kids head, and the paper got sheared into two halves just by the hardness and sharpness of the hair. The principal then had the argument that the kid could be a danger or disruption.
The judicial system works by establishing precedents; even if a specific case is won, it is the reasoning in the court justices' majority and concurring opinions that determines whom the true winners are.
The most recent big case that we learned about was New Jersey v T.L.O. In it, a 15-year-old girl was accused of smoking in the bathroom, and when she was brought to the principal, she claimed that she didn't smoke in the bathroom because she didn't smoke at all. The principal went into her purse, found cigarettes, and also found rolling papers. He then kept searching and found other marijuana-related items, including a paper with a list of names. He called the police, all that legal stuff and school-rule stuff, and basically, TLO brought it to court that the principal violated her fourth amendment rights of "
No Unreasonable Search or Seizure".
In the US, a police officer must have, specifically these words,
probable cause to search something privately owned for evidence. They must go to a judge and get a search warrant in order to search private property, unless there is something
in plain view or he sees a
felony being committed, that
lives are in immediate danger, or that
evidence may be destroyed if he does not act fast. On school grounds, because school officials have
in loco parentis (they have the authority of parents over the kids, more authority than a police officer on school grounds), the principal had a right to search the purse because the rolling papers were
in plain view when he found the cigarettes, and he had the right to open the purse to find the cigarettes because it a teacher told him that TLO was smoking in the bathroom and she would have it on her person if she was.
Though I agree that TLO should not have won the case, the court said that school officials do not have to act on
probable cause; they only need a
reasonable suspicion. These bolded words are all recognized legally--I am not using synonyms or my own definitions for them. Because school officials need only a reasonable suspicion rather than a probable cause, students in effect have less privacy.
Interestingly, for all the weight that the exact lingo has in the world of law, the Tinker v Des Moines case's biggest lingo, that students
do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gates, has not actually been too effective at deciding landmark cases since then.
As for the "oh, kids at school are slaves" and all that:
Though Aqizzar is right in the technicalities of the freedoms in choice, the de facto effect of the laws in place remove freedoms of kids. At school, the teachers and officials have nearly absolute authority due to
in loco parentis, and attendance at school is mandatory until at least age 16. Even then, a person may not drop out of school without parental permission; they may only drop out of school at age 18 without parental permission. I don't know if that is my state though or if it is national, so I could be effectively wrong to you guys if it's a per-state basis.
School is good. I love learning and understand the values of education. But that doesn't mean that the system is great as it currently stands.
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