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Student's Rights and Responsibilities Nicole Lightell Herington

Bill, a high school student, was suspended for wearing an earring to school in violation of the school's policy prohibiting gang symbols. Bill sued the school, believing his expression rights were violated. While students do not give up their constitutional rights at school, the document discusses several Supreme Court rulings establishing that student rights in schools are not equal to adult rights. It is unclear from the details provided whether Bill's suspension was justified, as more context is needed around the earring, any warnings given to Bill, and whether it disrupted the school. The court would likely decide the case based on precedence from similar prior cases, but insufficient information is given to determine which side would win.

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99 views5 pages

Student's Rights and Responsibilities Nicole Lightell Herington

Bill, a high school student, was suspended for wearing an earring to school in violation of the school's policy prohibiting gang symbols. Bill sued the school, believing his expression rights were violated. While students do not give up their constitutional rights at school, the document discusses several Supreme Court rulings establishing that student rights in schools are not equal to adult rights. It is unclear from the details provided whether Bill's suspension was justified, as more context is needed around the earring, any warnings given to Bill, and whether it disrupted the school. The court would likely decide the case based on precedence from similar prior cases, but insufficient information is given to determine which side would win.

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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Students Rights and Responsibilities

Nicole Lightell
Herington
In a high school in northeastern United States a student named Bill was suspended for

wearing an earring to school. Bill believed his expression rights were violated. Therefore, he

sued the school. The school initiated a policy prohibiting the wearing of gang symbols such as

jewelry, emblems, earrings, and athletic caps. The policy was developed based on gang

activities that were prevalent in the school. Public school authorities traditionally were allowed

to restrict for almost any reason, the Supreme Court has recognized since the mid-twentieth

century that students do not give up their constitutional rights as a condition of public school

attendance (McCabe, 2009).

In a similar case, Tinker vs. Des Moines the Court stated that students do not "shed their

constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate

(uscourts.gov). Tinker held that the wearing of armbands by students to protest the Vietnam

War was constitutionally protected speech because it was political speech. Political speech is at

the heart of the First Amendment and, thus, can only be prohibited if it "substantially disrupts"

the educational process (uscourts.gov). Although Bill did violate school policy by wearing the

earring it does not state if he was disrupting the educational process or whether the earring

was depicting something of inappropriate nature. On the other hand, the Court noted in Bethel
v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675, 682 (1986) that "the constitutional rights of students at public school

are not automatically, coextensive with the rights of adults." The rights of students are applied

"in light of the special characteristics of the school environment," according to the U.S.

Supreme Court in Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier (uscourts.gov). Commercial expression

is not granted the same level of first amendment protection as speech intended to convey a

particular point of view (McCabe, 2009). If Bill was promoting an unsuitable product then his

suspension would be nothing to argue about.

As for the courts supporting Bill, I feel as though the school would win in this particular

case. The rules were put in place pre-suspension of Bill. He knew the consequences but

blatantly ignored them, thus, the suspension. But we still do not know if the school had given

him a warning about wearing the earring or if the schools policy was a zero tolerance policy.

The American Bar Association and others have called for an end to such policies that require

automatic penalties without assessing the circumstances (McCabe, 2009). In Goss v. Lopez, the

court held that minimum due process must be provided before a student is suspended for even

a brief period of time (McCabe, 2009).Now if wearing the earring was a religious expression and

the school was unaware then yes the court could possibly be in favor of Bill. Religious

exemptions have not been honored if considered unnecessary to accommodate the practice of

religious tenets or if the exemption would substantially disrupt the school or students

academic progress or pose a safety hazard (McCabe, 2009 ).

Seeing as how there is not too much information given about just what took place when

Bill was suspended, the court would have no choice but to decide off of other cases to either
justify Bills suspension or to side with Bill. From looking at other cases I cannot see either side

winning. With stare decisis being the biggest deciding factor this case would just be another

example.
Sources
uscourts.gov. (n.d.). Facts and case summary. Retrieved from
http://www.uscourts.gov/EducationalResources/ClassroomActivities/FirstAmendment/Fr
eeSpeechAndSchoolConduct/FactsAndCaseSummary.aspx

McCabe, N. (2009). Legal rights of teachers and students. (2nd ed., pp. 94-97-172-173). Boston:

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