Does the First Amendment stop at the classroom door?
Mary Beth Tinker Tinker and a panel of experts will speak on the First Amendment
on Monday, March 11, at 7:30 p.m. in the Winifred Moore Auditorium.
ST. LOUIS, March 7, 2013 – In 1965, Mary Beth Tinker was only 13-years-old when her actions propelled her to
the Supreme Court. She and a small group of students decided to wear black armbands
to their Des Moines area schools to protest the war in Vietnam. Tinker and four other
students were suspended when the schools asked them to remove the armbands and they
refused.
The American Civil Liberties Union helped file a complaint at U.S. District Court
arguing the protest was free speech protected by the First Amendment. They lost there
and at the appellate court. In 1968, the case went to the Supreme Court. As the case
went through the courts, Tinker and her family relocated to St. Louis where she attended
high school in University City.
After four years, the case culminated in the landmark Supreme Court decision: Tinker
v. Des Moines. On February 24, 1969, the Court ruled that the First Amendment applied
to public schools and that school officials could not censor student speech unless
it disrupted the educational process. The case determined that students do not “shed
their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse
gate.”
Join Tinker and a panel of experts on the First Amendment on Monday, March 11, at
7:30 p.m. in the Winifred Moore Auditorium. The event hosted by Webster’s School of
Communications is free and open to the public. Mary Beth Tinker Free Expression Arm
Bands will be available for those who attend.
The panel, moderated by newspaper editor and Webster University communications & journalism
professor Don Corrigan, includes:
- Craig Cheathan, KMOV Investigative Reporter
- Tony Rothert, American Civil Liberties Union
- Tammy Merret-Murry, president, Society of Professional Journalists
- Antonia Akrap, Kirkwood Call H.S. Newspaper
The event is co-sponsored by Sponsors of School Publications (SSP); Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), Gateway Journalism Review/St. Louis Journalism Review; Gateway Media Literacy Partners; St. Louis Media History Foundation and Mid-America Chapter of National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS).