Administrative Regulation of Student Expression by Tony Palmeri
[note: This essay will be delivered at the annual meeting of the
Central States Communication Association in Omaha, Nebraska on
April 12, 2003. I welcome your feedback: Palmeri@uwosh.edu].
Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of
grievances. -From the First Amendment Teachers and students do
not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or
expression at the schoolhouse gate. -Justice Abe Fortas, Tinker
v. Des Moines School District (1969) The US Supreme Court has
issued opinions on student speech in three broad areas:
political expression, vulgar and indecent expression, and school
sponsored expression. This brief paper will: (1) summarize the
Court's decisions in each broad area of speech restriction in
order to show how the notion of administrative regulation of
K-12 student expression has devel