Freedom of Expression in Public Schools

 

 

Public school officials are faced with a difficult problem concerning the rights of their students. On one hand, they believe they have to protect the students from offensive and outrageous conduct. On the other, they have to obey the Constitution of the United States and not infringe on a student’s right to freedom of expression. School officials are given the responsibility of protecting their students, and they often have the power to censor their students to uphold that protection. However, public school systems and officials should not have the authority to strip away a student’s right to freedom of expression, no matter how vulgar it is.

The First Amendment of the Constitution guarantees unabridged freedom of expression for all American citizens. Freedom of expression includes freedom of speech, freedom of the press, symbolic speech, and any other way a person may find to express themselves. The expression can be lewd, vulgar, obscene, or disdainful, as long as it is not slanderous or libelous and it has some sort of message behind it. Obscenity for the sake of being obscene is not permitted, as determined by the Supreme Court in Miller v. California (Fiornia et al 438); however, obscenity should be allowable to get a point across. Freedom of expression shall be defined as such.

Citizens of the United States, no matter what age, have a right to the freedom of expression. The right to freedom of expression has been and continues to be defined by the federal government. The First Amendment specifically outlaws Congress from creating any legislation to inhibit the freedom of expression. State governments and their agencies are not specifically outlawed, but the courts, through their decisions, have extended the prohibition to them as well. The right to symbolic speech was challenged in the cases Church v. Board of Ed. Of Saline Area School District and Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District. In Church, the student grew his hair long as a symbolic display of his opposition to the war in Vietnam, which was in violation of the dress code. He was subsequently suspended (Behrens 414). The court ruled in his favor, declaring that the long hair was a symbolic expression of a political view and that an inherent part of democracy was to have differing opinions. In Tinker, students wore black armbands to protest the Vietnam, an act that was in violation of the dress code, and the students were suspended (Behrens 403). The court ruled in favor of the students, again citing the need for dissention of opinion in a healthy democracy and the fact that students should not be forced to shed their civil liberties just because they are in school. Both of these cases declare that students have the right to symbolic speech while in the school environment. The courts have struck down school board policies that prohibit such speech, and the First Amendment rights of the students were guaranteed. Another court case, Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, challenged the right of the principal to censor articles in the student newspaper. Some of the articles were deemed improper and were deleted from the paper. The authors of the articles challenged on the grounds that their freedom of the press was being abridged (Behrens 378). The court ruled in favor of the principal, but on the grounds that he had the right to regulate the information that was published by school-sponsored publications. It was held that the students had the right to compose their opinions; thus, upholding their freedom of expression. The courts have the final say on the constitutionality of state policies, and they have declared in these cases that students have the right to freedom of expression. The Constitution and the courts have made it clear that all American citizens, including students of public schools, have the right to freedom of expression. They should be able to express their opinions with free reign; otherwise, the students do not have all the rights guaranteed by the Constitution when they enter school, making the school somewhat like a separate nation. Schools should not be able to be independent, totalitarian entities; they should still have to abide by the Constitution and the courts of the United States.

There are likely to be many refutations to the argument for the allowance of students to express any opinion they have through any manner they wish in a public school. Some may say that such expressions inhibit the ability of the schools to teach, that they disrupt the learning environment, and that it may be a distraction to students. I would like to see evidence behind these claims. I do not see how expressions, whether they be symbolic, printed, or spoken during an assembly can degrade the learning experience. I would expect ordinary students to be able to observe and respond to such things, but not to dwell on them. Basically, the students should be able to get over it. Some may say that the school has a duty to protect their students from vulgar, obscene, and improper statements. I contend that, since a majority of all the cases where the freedom of expression has been questioned occurs in high school, these students should be able to withstand certain amounts of obscenity.  The court requires people to be thick-skinned enough to endure certain levels of vulgarity for emotional distress cases. Why cannot the same be applied to high school students? Sure, they are not adults and have a much lower level of maturity, and yes, they are much more impressionable. But this does not exclude them from the harsh reality of the real world, and as schooling prepares students for life outside of the classroom, they should also be taught to endure some obscene and vulgar statements. Plus, for most of the cases involving obscene or inappropriate comments are far less objectionable than what you could find in the world outside of school. Students should be able to not be distracted by the statements and should be able to endure any vulgarity in the statements. It will be expected of them in the world outside school, and they should therefore be preparing for that.

Students in public schools, especially public high schools, should have the right to express their views according to the standards of the general American public. A school should not be treated as separate on the matter of freedom of expression. If school boards and principals are given the authority to regulate non-school endorsed speech, they will limit the students drive to speak out. Public schools are not supposed to be serfdoms were all the students must obey and think exactly like the administration.

Work Cited

Behrens, Laurence. Making the Case. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001.

Fiorina, Morris P., Paul E. Peterson, and D. Stephen Voss. America’s New Democracy. New York: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc., 2002.