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ALABAMA

Religion in Schools (US Supreme Court) - Wallace v. Jaffree (1985)
After the US Supreme Court had ruled that prayers in schools were unconstitutional, the Alabama legislature tried to get around that ruling by passing a law authorizing teachers to start each school day with a "moment of silent meditation or voluntary prayer." But in the 1985 case of Wallace v. Jaffree, the Court ruled this law was unconstitutional. "Silent meditation" was really about religion, the Court said, and since the law lacked a secular purpose, it violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

1. Listen to the oral arguments: http://www.oyez.org/cases/1980-1989/1984/1984_83_812

2. Read the decision: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=472&invol=38

Searches

ALASKA

Freedom of Expression (US Supreme Court) - Morse v. Frederick (2007)
In 2002, Joseph Frederick, a high school senior, stood on a sidewalk opposite his Juneau-Douglas  High School  holding up a 14-foot long banner stating "Bong Hits 4 Jesus."  At the time television cameras were filming runners who were carrying the Olympic torch past Frederick as part of a celebration of the Winter Olympic games. The school's principal, angered by what she regarded as Frederick's pro-drugs message, took away his banner and later suspended him 10 days.

Frederick claimed his First Amendment rights had been violated and the ACLU brought a case in federal district court.  The court dismissed his lawsuit and Frederick appealed the rulings. A three-court panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in March 2006 sided with Frederick. Judge Andrew Kleinfeld said his speech was not "vulgar, lewd, and obscene" and did not cause any disruption. It was therefore protected under the Tinker standard.  Eventually the case was heard by the US Supreme Court.

On June 25, 2007 the US Supreme Court ruled by 5-4 in favor of the school principal.  In his majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts stated: "We hold that schools may take steps to safeguard those entrusted to their care from speech that can reasonably be regarded as encouraging illegal drug use." In his strongly worded dissent, Justice Stevens declared "that the school's interest in protecting its students from exposure to speech 'reasonably regarded as promoting illegal drug use' cannot justify disciplining Frederick for his attempt to make an ambiguous statement to a television audience simply because it contained an oblique reference to drugs.  The First Amendment demands more, indeed, much more." In an concurrent opinion, Clarence Thomas sided with the majority, but wished the Court had gone further and thrown out Tinker entirely: "In my view, the history of public education, as originally understood, does not protect student speech in public schools...in the earliest public schools, teachers taught, and students listened. Teachers commanded, and students obeyed."

ARIZONA

Search and Seizure (US Supreme Court) - Safford Unified School District v. April Redding (2009)

In one of the biggest victories for student rights in two decades, the US Supreme Court ruled 8-1 on June 25, 2009 that the strip search of 13-year-old Arizona student violated her Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. The sole dissenter was Justice Clarence Thomas.

In October 2003, Savana Redding was identified by another student at Safford Middle School, which had a “zero tolerance” policy for drugs, as the source of prescription-strength Ibuprofen pills. Savana was told to go to the office of the assistant principal where she was asked about the pills, each one the equivalent of two Advils.She said she knew nothing about them. The assistant principal and an administrative assistant then searched her backpack and found nothing.At this point she was taken to the school nurse’s office where her clothes were searched for pills. When nothing was found in her outer garments, she was told to strip to her bra and underpants, which she then had to pull to the side and shake. No pills were found.

Savana was so humiliated by this experience that she never again returned to the school. Her mother, April Redding, filed suit against the school officials. Eventually, with the help of the ACLU, the case reached the Supreme Court. Justice Souter delivered the majority opinion.Applying the ”reasonable suspicion” standard laid down in the Supreme Court’s 1985 T.L.O. ruling, he found that the school officials had the right to search her backpack and outer clothes. But the search of her underwear was “excessively intrusive.” “What was missing from the suspected facts that pointed to Savana,” Justice David Souter wrote, “was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear. We think that the combination of these deficiencies was fatal to finding the search reasonable.”

The Justices did not rule that strip searches were never legal in school. Instead, they found that there had to be a “reasonable suspicion of danger” and reasonable notion that underwear was being used to hide evidence of wrongdoing for such a search to be constitutional. The Court gave the school officials who conducted the search qualified immunity – barring them from being sued – on the grounds that the law regarding such searches was not clear at the time they searched Savana, since different courts around the country had ruled in different ways on the matter of strip searches. The case was sent back to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to decide whether the school district as a whole could be held liable.

Learn more: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-479.ZO.html

Search and Seizure
In 2005 a federal immigration judge threw out deportation charges against four undocumented Phoenix high school students on grounds that they had been subjected to racial profiling and an illegal search and seizure at the Canadian border.  They were among a group of nine high-achieving Latino students who had traveled to New York as part of a school field trip to participate in a prestigious international solar-powered boat competition.  When a teacher enquired whether they could cross to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls using their high school identification cards, the students were singled out and interrogated for nine hours about their legal status by US immigration officials.  

ARKANSAS

The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled in 2004 against a search conducted by the Little Rock School District. All students in a secondary school classroom had to leave the room after piling their belongings on their desks. School staff then searched the belongings, including the purse of a female student, J.D., that contained marijuana. After the school turned the marijuana over to the police, J.D. was convicted of a misdemeanor. 

J.D. challenged the search policy.  A district court upheld the search even though it was conducted without "individualized suspicion" of wrongdoing as the Supreme Court had required in the 1985 T.L.O. case. But the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit disagreed. It ruled that by conducting a random suspicionless search, the school had unreasonably invaded students' legitimate expectations of privacy (which, though limited, do exist), and therefore violated their Fourth Amendment rights. 

(The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has jurisdiction over Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota as well as Arkansas.) 

Freedom of Expression
A federal judge ruled in October 2006 that students may wear black armbands to protest the restrictive uniform policy imposed by the Watson Chapel School District  in Arkansas. In September 2008, the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheld this ruling, citing the landmark 1969 student black armband case, Tinker v. Des Moines. 

After students began wearing the plain black quarter-inch wide armbands in early October 2006, school officials announced that anyone who did so would be suspended from school for three days. Twenty students received suspensions, and more than ten others were disciplined in other ways. Some students were sent to the library where two uniformed and armed police officers and a sheriff's deputy "appeared to be in charge," according to a student affidavit. The ACLU went to federal court on behalf of three students. After the federal judge issued a preliminary order blocking the school district from punishing students who wear the black armbands to school, school officials and students agreed that the bands would be worn but only on wrists.  Other students had not been punished when they wore black wristbands bearing the words "Watson Chapel" which were sold by the school. 

CALIFORNIA

COLORADO

CONNECTICUT

DELAWARE

First Amendment – Religion
In 2005, the Dobrich family and another family ("John Doe") that wished to remain anonymous out of fear of intimidation filed a lawsuit in federal district court charging the Indian River School District had created an "environment of religious exclusion" and promoted state-sponsored religion in the school.  At the school Bibles were distributed, teachers promoted Christianity, and Christian prayer was common at school functions.   The Dobrich's daughter was the only Jewish student to graduate in 2004.  At her graduation, the local pastor in his invocation stated: "I also pray for one specific student, that You be with her and guide her in the path that You have for her.  And we ask all these things in Jesus' name." When the Dobrichs complained, a special school board meeting was held on the subject of prayer at which they received a hostile reception.  The issue was inflamed by the local media, and after receiving threatening phone calls, the Dobrichs moved out of the town. When the school district rejected an offer to settle the federal lawsuit against the advice of the insurance company that had been representing it, company lawyers then filed a suit against the school district. The Dobrich-Doe case was due to go to trial in the summer of 2007. 

First Amendment – Religion
A lawsuit was filed against the Henlopen School District by a Muslim family that claimed that school officials were disrespectful of the their faith and did not stop the harassment of their children by other elementary school students.  In 2005, the case was settled when the school district promised to provide teacher training no diversity and a tolerance education program for all students. 

FLORIDA

Corporal Punishment in Schools (US Supreme Court) – Ingraham v. Wright (1977)
A Florida statute and Dade Country School Board policy provided for the punishment of students with one to five "licks" of a flat wooden paddle measuring less that two feet long, a few inches wide and half an inch thick.   During the 1970-1971 school year at Drew High School in Miami, after eighth grader James Ingraham was slow to respond to a teacher's instructions, he was given more than 20 blows while being held over a table.  He needed medical attention after the beating and missed 11 days of school.  Another Drew High School student, ninth grader Roosevelt Andrews, was hit on the arms after some minor infraction of the rules, and could not use one of his arms for a week. 

The students brought a lawsuit claiming that the paddling they received was a violation of the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.  They lost in the lower courts and then appealed to the US Supreme Court. 

The Supreme Court rejected the students' arguments. The court maintained that there was "historical and contemporary approval of reasonable corporal punishment." From the days of the American Revolution, moderate force had been used by teachers to discipline students. The court pointed out that corporal punishment remained an accepted practice in most states  At the time the court issued its decision, in 1977, only two states (Massachusetts and New Jersey) had banned corporal punishment. The court also maintained that the Eighth Amendment was intended to protect prisoners, not students in schools: "The openness of the public school and its supervision by the community afford significant safeguards against the kinds of abuses from which the Eighth Amendment protects the prisoner."

Read the decision: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=430&invol=651

Flag Salute

In October 2009 the US Supreme Court refused to review Frazier v. Smith involving a Florida law that required students to stand and participate in the Pledge of Allegiance unless they had a written excuse from a parent.  The law predated the 1943 Supreme Court ruling in Barnette v. West Virginia Board of Education that gave students the right to decide whether or not to participate in the Pledge.  A junior at Boynton Beach High School who filed suit after he was expelled from the room for refusing to stand and say the Pledge won in the federal district court which found the law to be unconstitutional.  The school appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, which found that the student could not be required to stand for the Pledge.  However, the Court also ruled that the portion of the law requiring parents to give their written consent was a parents' rights matter and was constitutional. The ACLU had asked the Supreme Court to decide whether the state of Florida could "condition a student's decision, based upon his personal beliefs and convictions, to decline to recite the pledge of allegiance upon the advance, written consent of a parent."

(The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has jurisdiction in Alabama and Georgia, as well as Florida.)

Zero Tolerance
The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upheld the arrest and strip-search of a Killian High School student for distributing an underground newspaper called First Amendment in her Miami-Dade County school. The paper violated the school's zero tolerance policy by including what were perceived to be threats against the school's principal.  The case arose in 1998 when nine Killian High School students were arrested, jailed overnight and later expelled for what they wrote in the pamphlet.  Hate crimes charges against them were later dropped.

Freedom of Expression

In 2009, the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit reversed a district court ruling and upheld the decision of the Miami-Dade School Board to remove “A Visit to Cuba” and the entire 23-book series of which it was a part from its school libraries. About 50 copies of the book for elementary school students were already in the Miami-Dade schools when a parent sought to have them removed. The school board agreed with the parent that “A Visit to Cuba” offered too positive a view of life under the Castro regime and contained factual inaccuracies, and proposed over the wishes of the school superintendent to remove the books.

Freedom of Expression

In February 2010, a federal judge ruled that a former principal at Penbroke Pines Charter High School did not have qualified immunity from a lawsuit brought by a student who had been punished for non-threatening online comments made about a teacher.  The student was a high school senior on the honor roll when she wrote at home on her Facebook page that the English teacher was the worst one she had ever had.  The page was only up for a few days, and two months after it had been taken down she was suspended for creating it. The case is expected to go to trial in the spring.

Freedom of Expression

After a student at Ponce de Leon High School in Ponce de Leon, Florida was prevented from wearing a handmade T-shirt that read “I support gays,” she sued the school for banning pro-gay symbols. In 2008 a federal judge ordered school officials to lift the ban and pay $325,000 in attorney’s fees.

Dress Code

In 2007 a federal court upheld Vera High School’s dress policy prohibiting students from wearing jewelry in piercings other than in their ears. The case involved a tenth grader who wore jewelry in face and chest piercings. She was told by an administrator that she could wear clear plastic jewelry in the piercings but went back to metal jewelry after her piercings got infected. She was the told to remove the jewelry or face discipline. The court recognized that the jewelry was a way of communicating non-conformity, but agreed with the school that it could pose a safety concern and interfere with the school’s interest in promoting an efficient educational environment.

Flag Salute
A federal judge ruled in June 2006 that a Boynton Beach High School junior could not be disciplined for failing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, and that a student does not have to get a parent's permission in order to be excused from reciting the Pledge.  The lawsuit challenged a  Florida  law that said the Pledge had to be recited at the beginning of the day in all public schools.  In 2008, the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit struck down part of a Florida statute requiring students to stand during the Pledge of Allegiance. However, the court upheld that part of the law that required students to get parental permission to be excused from participating in the Pledge.

Equal Access

In 2009 the ACLU brought a lawsuit against Nassau County Public Schools on behalf of two Yulee High School students who were prohibited from forming a Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA). A federal district court then granted a preliminary injunction barring the school from denying the GSA equal access to school facilities, treatment and recognition.

GEORGIA

Sexual Harassment in Schools (US Supreme Court) – Franklin v. Gwinnett County School District (1992)
The US Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Christine Franklin could sue her school district for failing to halt a teacher's sexual advances when she was a student at North Gwinnett High School. After Franklin filed a complaint, the school district had opened an investigation of the teacher, Andrew Hill, but closed the investigation when Hill agreed to resign on condition that all matters pending against him were dropped. 

Franklin then went to district court, stating she was the victim, and had been left without any possibility of redress for the wrong she had suffered. The case was brought under Title IX of the 1972 federal Education Act, that bars sexual discrimination in schools that receive federal funding.  The district court and the appeals court both ruled that Title IX did not authorize the award of damages.  But the Supreme Court disagreed, ruling that she could demand restitution for the injury inflicted on her, and the courts should decide what damages should be paid.

Read the decision: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=503&invol=60

Sexual Harassment in Schools (US Supreme Court) - Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education (1999)
In a 5-4 ruling that left the US Supreme Court bitterly divided, the majority of the court decided that school districts do have an obligation to protect students from peer-to-peer sexual harassment. The court ruled that schools can be sued under Title IX of the 1972 Education Act barring sexual discrimination if it can be shown that the sexual harassment is "so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively bars the victim's access to an educational opportunity or benefit," and school officials have done nothing to stop it, but instead acted with deliberate indifference.   The case involved LaShonda Davis, a fifth grader in a Georgia school, who, over a period of five months, was taunted so severely that her grades dropped and she contemplated suicide.  School officials did nothing in response to her mother's complaints. 

1. Listen to the oral arguments: http://www.oyez.org/cases/1990-1999/1998/1998_97_843

2. Read the decision: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=000&invol=97-843

Freedom of Expression

In 2007, the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled that a Roswell High School student could be suspended for ten days for writing a story in which a character dreamed about killing her mathematics teacher. The student maintained that the story entitled “Dream” was a piece of “creative fiction.” But the Appeals Court ruled that in light of the school shootings over the past eight years, her speech could reasonably be seen as a threat of school violence.

(The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has jurisdiction in Alabama and Florida as well as Georgia).

Freedom of Expression
Students in Gwinnett County were suspended for posting to a website created off school grounds which served as a place where students could vent about a particular teacher.   The ACLU brought a lawsuit arguing that there was no evidence of substantial disruption or imminent danger in the school and that the students should not be punished for their off-campus speech. The school district then initiated an out-of-court settlement proceeding.

Dress Code
The ACLU has brought a lawsuit on behalf of an honor student in the Gwinnett Country school district who has been repeatedly subjected to disciplinary actions by Brookwood High School officials for wearing clothing associated with African American culture.  The school district has refused to publish a list of prohibited clothing, and the lawsuit argues that the dress code is too broad.

Zero Tolerance
In 2000, 11-year-old Ashley Smith was suspended from Garrett Middle School in Austell, Georgia for having a ten inch chain dangling from her Tweety Bird key ring.  Three days later, the officials reversed themselves and agreed that the chain did not appear a dangerous weapon.  By this time Ashley's parents had denounced the school's zero tolerance policy, and enrolled her elsewhere.

Zero Tolerance
The ACLU is representing two students who were suspended for cutting a birthday cake with a knife that was present at the school.  They may also face criminal charges. 

HAWAII

Searches
A federal lawsuit was filed in 2000 on behalf of a 12-year-old girl who was arrested by school officials and city police officers, handcuffed and partially strip-searched over a missing $20 bill without her parents being notified.

First Amendment - Prayer in Schools
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in 1998 that Madison School District's policy of permitting top students in each senior class to decide whether to include a prayer, a poem, a reading or a musical presentation in graduation speeches was constitutional.

ILLINOIS

Religion
In the mid 1990s, the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled that students at a junior high school in Wauconda have a First Amendment right to distribute religious publications.  The court also upheld the school's right to regulate distribution according to "time, place and manner" rules, and said it could restrict materials by non students.

(The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has jurisdiction over Indiana and Wisconsin as well as Illinois.) 

First Amendment

In 2008 the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed a lower court ruing and permitted a student at Neuqua Valley High School outside Chicago to wear a shirt to school that read “Be Happy, Not Gay.” The student wore the shirt on what was called the “Day of Truth,” following the school’s “Day of Silence” organized by the Gay/Straight Alliance. The court decided that the slogan was only “tepidly negative” and unlikely to disrupt the school or poison the educational atmosphere.

Due Process

In August 2008 the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled that a 15-year old student at Bolingbrook High School had received sufficient due process before being expelled for two semesters over a gang-related confrontation in the school’s cafeteria. The confrontation did not involve violence, but the flashing of “gang signals,” and the student was charged with violating the school’s “subversive organizations” rule. The Court said the student had been given a meaningful opportunity to be heard, and that he was not entitled to cross-examine school security guards or to have a Spanish-language interpreter present at the hearing..

Religion

In January 2009, the US District Court for Northern Illinois ruled that a state law requiring a moment of silence in public schools was unconstitutional. According to the court, “the statute is a subtle effort to force students at impressionable ages to contemplate religion” and crosses the line separating Church and State.

First Amendment - Zero Tolerance

Allen Lee, a senior at Cary-Grove High School, with a straight-A academic record, was arrested near his home in April 2007 and charged with disorderly conduct for an essay he wrote for a creative writing class that police said was violently disturbing.  It did not target a particular person, and had not been published or posted for public viewing.  Neither was there any kind of disruption or disorder when the student handed in his homework.  His teacher, who asked the class to do a stream-of-consciousness essay and not to censor themselves, was alarmed by the violent contents of the essay after the killing of 32 college students at Virginia Tech.  The Marine Corps canceled his enlistment after charges were brought against him.  A month later, charges were dropped, clearing the way for Allen Lee to join the Marines.

Dress Code

In 2009, after the ACLU brought a lawsuit on behalf of a student who was challenging the policy of Lebanon School district that female students had to wear dresses at the prom, the school reversed its policy. The student had asserted that the school violated her right to express herself and discriminated against her because of her gender. She won the right to wear a tuxedo to the prom.

Due Process

In 2007, a federal district court upheld the expulsion of a high school freshman at Plainfield North High School for, on two occasions, brushing the buttocks of his teacher as she walked by. After a disciplinary hearing attended by the student’s mother and an attorney, the student was expelled for the remainder of the 2006-07 school year and the entire 2007-08 school year. The school’s decision was based in part on statements from three students who said they had overheard the freshman make sexual comments about the teacher. The student was not permitted to cross-examine the unidentified students. The court held that the student’s due process rights had not been violated since he was given notice of the charges against him and a chance to present his side of the story as required by the Supreme Court decision in Goss v. Lopez. Students do not, the court ruled, have the Fourteenth Amendment right to confront the witnesses against them since “schools have a strong interest in protecting students who come forward to report misconduct by their peers.”

Freedom of Expression - Dress Code

In 2009 the Lebanon School District reversed its policy of requiring female students to wear dresses to the prom immediately after a legal challenge was brought by a senior who was a lesbian and wanted to wear a tuxedo to the prom.  The new policy eliminates the gender-based attire requirement and permits the wearing of tuxedos by females to the prom.

Freedom of Expression - Dress Code
David Griggs, a student at Elmhurst High School, challenged his school's dress code that banned "apparel depicting...symbols of violence."  Griggs had been disciplined for wearing a T-shirt in support of the United States Marine Corps that featured a picture of an M-16 rifle and the Creed of the US Marines which ends: "I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me.  I must shoot him before he shoots me."   He sued the school district in federal district court, claiming the dress code was overbroad.  The court agreed with him.  The judges saw no sign that the T-shirt caused disruption at school and no other student had complained about the T-shirt message.  In the court’s opinion the school system policy as applied to this particular T-shirt served “no legitimate pedagogical concern.”

Equal Opportunity
In March 2006, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled in favor of the parents represented by the ACLU in a case challenging fees for public school students at an Indianapolis school.  Although the Indiana Constitution states that "tuition shall be without charge," the school had been charging students a $20 mandatory student services fee in order to cover the costs of nurses, athletics, and counselors.  The ruling did not apply to fees for textbooks.  Indiana is one of ten states to require students to pay for the books they use in school.

Freedom of Expression
At the end of 2006, district court ruled on behalf of three Knightstown High School sophomores who were expelled for making a film off-campus about a doll that kills a teacher, "The Teddy Bear Master."  The students were allowed to return to school and shared a $69,000 settlement. 

Freedom of Expression
In 2007, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled that the principal of Greencastle Middle School infringed on a student's  First Amendment rights when he put her on probation for creating a MySpace page containing expletives and criticisms of the principal. The state court found her comments were protected under the free expression provision of the Indiana Constitution. 

IOWA

Freedom of Expression (US Supreme Court)- Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969)
By a vote of 7-2, the US Supreme Court upheld the First Amendment rights of students to protest the Vietnam War by wearing black armbands to school. The ruling opened the door for an expansion of student rights around the country.

A few days before the armbands were worn by John Tinker, aged 15, his sister Mary Beth, aged 13, and their friend, Christopher Eckhardt, aged 16, the principals of Des Moines schools adopted a policy that any student who wore an armband would be asked to remove it, and would be sent home if he or she refused to do so.  When they refused to take their armbands off, the three students were sent home.  They did not return to school until after the planned period for the protest had expired. 

The students then went to court, arguing that armbands were a form of symbolic speech and their First Amendment rights to freedom of expression had been violated by their suspensions.  Both the district court and the appeals court said their constitutional rights had not been violated. But the US Supreme Court, with Justice Abe Fortas writing the majority opinion, disagreed.   He declared: "In our system, state-operated schools may not be enclaves of totalitarianism.  School officials do not possess absolute authority over their students.  Students in school as well as out of school are 'persons' under our Constitution. They are possessed of fundamental rights which the State must respect..." Censoring student expression is impermissible, the court ruled, unless it "materially and substantially" disrupts the educational process or invades the rights of others.  This restraint on student censorship is known as the "Tinker standard."

1. Learn more from John Tinker, Mary Beth Tinker and Chris Eckhardt

2. Listen to the oral arguments: http://www.oyez.org/cases/1960-1969/1968/1968_21

3. Read the decision: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=393&invol=503

'Gang' Symbols
A panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled in the mid 1990s that an Iowa school district policy barring gang symbols and colors was unconstitutionally "vague" (not specific enough).  The case was brought by a junior at West High School in Davenport, who was threatened with expulsion unless she had a small cross tattoo removed from her hand.  After laser surgery to remove the tattoo, she sued, saying it was not a gang symbol. 

(The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has jurisdiction over North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Missouri and Arkansas, as well as Iowa.) 

Freedom of Expression

In 2005, the ACLU defended students who were punished for wearing T-shirts opposing abortion.  The girls were told to cover up or face punishment. The ACLU noted that it was ironic that they were at the same high school – Roosevelt High - where the Tinker siblings wore black armbands to protest the Vietnam War, leading to the milestone Supreme Court case, Tinker v. Des Moines.

KANSAS

Zero Tolerance – Expression
In January 2000, at Bluestem High School in Leon, Kansas, Sarah Boman – an honor roll student – posted an artwork poem written in a spiral pattern on a classroom door.  The poem, written from the point of view of a delusional person whose dog had been killed and who threatened to kill others, was an example of "repetitive art" required for an art college portfolio.  She had often put up her artwork for her high school classmates to see.  But before the day was out, she had been suspended and was soon expelled for the rest of the school year and told she needed a psychological examination before returning to school. School authorities said her poem was seen as a "threat."  A federal district court ruled that her First Amendment rights were violated when she was expelled, and that the school was wrong to say she could only return if she underwent a psychiatric evaluation.

KENTUCKY

Religion in Schools (US Supreme Court)- Stone v. Graham (1980)
The US Supreme Court decided that a Kentucky law requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in each classroom in the state was unconstitutional since it was plainly religious and had no secular purpose.   The court stated, "This is not a case in which the Ten Commandments are integrated into the school curriculum, where the Bible may constitutionally be used in an appropriate study of history, civilization, ethics, comparative religion, or the like. Posting of religious texts on the wall serves no such educational function."

Read the decision: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=449&invol=39

Harassment
In 2008, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that a Boyd County High School senior should not be allowed to pursue a lawsuit against a school policy requiring students to undergo anti-harassment training. The student had claimed that the policy was a threat to his Christian beliefs and opposition to homosexuality. It was adopted as part of an earlier legal settlement with a Gay Straight Alliance that sought recognition as an extracurricular group.

(The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has jurisdiction in Ohio, Tennessee and Michigan as well as Kentucky).

Gender Segregation

The ACLU in 2008 brought a lawsuit against Breckenridge County School District and the US Department of Education, arguing that sex-segregated classrooms deny boys and girls equal educational opportunities. The lawsuit claims the US Department of Education has violated the Constitution and the Equal Educational Opportunities Act by issuing regulations encouraging districts to segregate students by sex. The segregated classes at Breckenridge County Middle School use different textbooks and cover academic material at different rates, and students were assigned to them without input from their parents. The five families that are plaintiffs in the suit say that single sex classrooms deprive their children of the chance to socialize, compete and work together with members of the opposite sex.

LOUISIANA

Freedom of Expression
Citing the Tinker case, a federal district court judge in Louisiana in 1999 upheld the right of Jennifer Roe to wear a black armband to her school in Bossier City to protest the school's uniform policy.  Roe, a sophomore and honor student when she wore her armband, was told by the principal to take it off or she would be subjected to punishment.  He did not change his mind after hearing about the Tinker Supreme Court precedent. Roe said took her stand because "our First Amendment rights are slowly being taken away, and people aren't noticing."

Personal Appearance – Hair
A US district court in Louisiana has upheld the Morehouse Parish School Board's ban on male students wearing their hair in braids. The school district dress code prohibited male students from wearing braids, but allowed female students to do so. The parents of a freshman at Bastrop High School sued the school board saying their son's equal protection rights had been violated by a code which treated females and males differently.  They said it was common for African American males to wear braids, and they did not cause a disturbance in the school.  But the court agreed with the school board that the ban advanced legitimate reasons, such as imposing discipline, creating respect for authority and conforming to community standards.  To reach its decision, the court relied on a 1972 ruling from the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, Karr v. Schmidt, which held by 8-7 that a student does not have the constitutional right to wear his hair as he sees fit.  The Fifth Circuit ruling applies to students in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. (The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled in the opposite way in the 1970 case of Richards v. Thurston which applies to students in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine and Puerto Rico).          

Dress Code
In 2000, school officials in Lafayette, Louisiana settled a lawsuit with the parents of eight Rastafarian children who were being barred from school because their hair and headgear was not in conformity with the school's dress code.  According to the terms of the settlement, the children can keep their dreadlocks and wear headgear that matches school uniform colors.  The students must allow officials to inspect their headgear everyday for illegal contraband.

Discipline

St. Tammany Parish School Board and the Sheriff’s Office are being sued by a former high school student who was arrested after allegedly using her cell phone in violation of school policy and then refusing to surrender it to school officials. She contends she was mistreated by the school’s resource officer after making a call to her mother to ask for a ride.

MAINE

Zero Tolerance
A ninth grader in Portland, Maine was expelled by her school in 2001 without being given a hearing for violating her school's zero tolerance drug policy that bans possession or use of Tylenol.  ACLU filed a lawsuit.

MARYLAND

Searches

In 2007, Kent County School District decided to settle a case brought by two Kent County High School students who were subjected to a strip search in a 2004 school raid with drug-sniffing dogs. No drugs were found. The students won $285,000 in damages and written apologies from the school system and sheriff’s office.

Drug Testing
In an out-of-court settlement in 2000, Talbot County school district backed down from the requirement that 18 students undergo drug testing or face expulsion for attending an off-campus party where it was rumored someone had used drugs.  School officials agreed to stop all student drug testing in county schools and pay damages.  The Talbot County Board of Education agreed that instead of administering a urinalysis test, school officials would inform parents if they thought a student was taking drugs. 

MASSACHUSETTS

Harassment (US Supreme Court) - Fitzgerald v. Barnstable School Committee (2009)

In February 2009, the US Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the parents of a child who faced harassment on a school bus could sue Barnstable School District for gender discrimination and civil rights violations. Their daughter, a kindergartner in Hyannis, had been repeatedly bullied by a third-grade boy, and told to lift up her skirt and pull down her underpants. After her parents alerted school officials, they suggested putting the girl on another bus rather than taking any action against the boy. The Court made it clear that teachers and school officials who fail to protect the civil rights of their students could be held personally liable under Title IX (which bars gender discrimination at schools that receive federal funds) and under the civil rights law known as Section 1983.

Personal Appearance – Hair
In 1970, the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld the right of a 17-year-old student from Marlboro, Massachusetts to wear his hair as he saw fit.  Bob Richards had been suspended for violating a school policy against "unusually long hair."  The court found the policy unconstitutional, and stated that Richard's hair was protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment which "establishes a sphere of personal liberty for every individual" as long as that liberty did not interfere with the rights of others.  The court stated that forcing students to adopt "conventional standards of appearance" is not a "justifiable part of the educational process."

Two years later, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in the opposite way, meaning that students in some states have more protection in terms of their personal appearance in public schools than students in other states (see Texas). 

(The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has jurisdiction in Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Puerto Rico as well as Massachusetts.) 

Freedom of Expression
The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled in 1997 in a case from Lexington High School that student journalists have the right to refuse ads submitted to their publications.  The student editors of the yearbook and newspaper refused to accept an ad encouraging sexual abstinence, and were sued in federal court.  The court agreed that the students could refuse the ad since they, and not school officials, made content decisions.  The appeals court decision was based in part on the Massachusetts Student Free Expression Act. 

(The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has jurisdiction in Maine, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Puerto Rico as well as Massachusetts.)

Freedom of Expression
In 1993, Jeff and Jonathan Pyle, two high school students in South Hadley, Massachusetts, were sent home for wearing "Coed Naked" and other T-shirts that the administration thought were "vulgar," "lewd," and "demeaning to women."  They brought a lawsuit against their school, arguing that schools cannot censor student speech simply because it may be "offensive" to others.

They won an important victory at the trial court level.  The judge ruled that schools cannot practice "viewpoint discrimination."  Picking which viewpoints will and will not be allowed was unconstitutional.  But the judge also ruled that school administrators may censor speech that they regard as "vulgar" or "lewd."

The brothers appealed this part of the decision, and eventually ended up before the state Supreme Judicial Court.  In 1996, that court ruled unanimously that the state's Student Free Expression Act protects shirts which teachers consider to be "vulgar," but which do not disrupt the educational process.  As a result, Massachusetts now has the broadest student free speech law in the country. 

Read the Student Free Expression Act: link
Meet Jeff Pyle: link

Freedom of Expression
After the ACLU intervened, Holliston High School agreed to end its punishment of two female students who had displayed protest signs during the annual talent show. The students had been suspended from classes and barred from the school prom and graduation for protesting against what they regarded as the unfair expulsion of two other students.

Freedom of Expression

Two students at Hudson High School advertised their new Conservative Club by putting up posters listing the Club website address. The website had several links to videos showing brutal beheadings. When the principal heard about the links, he had the posters removed and the students were informed that the school thought it was inappropriate to expose other students to the type of violence shown in the videos. The students then went to federal district court, alleging that the school had censored their speech. In 2007, the court ruled that the students had a First Amendment right to put the website address on their publicity materials, and that the links on the website did not create a disruption with the running of the school.

Zero Tolerance for Expression
In 2001, the highest court in Massachusetts (the Supreme Judicial Court) upheld the expulsion of a 12-year-old Worcester student for two drawings he made of himself shooting his teacher.  The court decided that the picture could be considered a criminal act because of the "climate of apprehension" caused by the Columbine and other school shootings.

Zero Tolerance for Expression
After the ACLU in 2000 challenged the suspension of a Boston Latin Academy student who frightened an English teacher with the vivid horror story he wrote as part of a writing assignment, the suspension was overturned.  The ACLU pointed out that the suspension violated the Student Free Expression Act, which gives students in Massachusetts the broadest free speech rights in the country.  

Religion in Schools
Six students from Westfield High School received one-day internal suspensions in 2003 after they distributed 500 candy canes containing a message about the birth of Jesus. The school principal had denied them permission to distribute the candy canes because of a school policy barring the distribution of non school and non curricular material.  The students won a federal lawsuit that maintained their First Amendment rights had been violated.

Dress Code
In the mid 1990s, Adam Field, a student from Greater New Bedford Regional Vocation Technical High School was suspended from school because his hair measured more than 2 and ½ inches below his ear.  The Massachusetts Superior Court barred his exclusion from school and held that the school's "good grooming provision" was unconstitutional.  The court invoked the US Appeals Court for the First Circuit ruling in the 1970 case Richard v. Thurston to uphold Field's liberty interest to wear his hair as he chose.

Condom Distribution
In the mid 1990s, the Supreme Judicial Court, the highest court in Massachusetts, upheld the condom-distribution program established by Falmouth School district for students in grades 7-12.  Under the plan, students could obtain condoms from the nurse or vending machines located in restrooms.  This was the first time a state high court had upheld a condom-distribution program without requiring parental consent.  The US Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal in the case.

Searches
The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled in 2001 against the search of a Boston high school student who was targeted because of his truant behavior.  Marijuana was found in his shoe.  The court said there was no reasonable suspicion to search the student and that the search violated his Fourth Amendment rights.   According to the court, "hunches and unparticularized suspicion do not constitute reasonable grounds for the search of a student."

Harassment

A 15-year-old high school freshman Phoebe Prince committed suicide after months of relentless school bullying and cyber bullying from fellow classmates at South Hadley High School. She had recently moved from Ireland, and was reportedly bullied because of her brief relationships with a senior football player and another male student. Prior to her death, the student’s mother had spoken to several staff members about the incidents, and numerous bystanders, including at least four students and two faculty members, apparently intervened or reported the harassment to administrators. However, the administration took no action and claimed that the school officials had been unaware of the bullying. In March of 2010, six teenagers from the high school were indicted on felony charges including statutory rape, criminal harassment, violation of civil rights with bodily injury, disturbing a school assembly, and stalking. Spurred on by this incident, a anti-bullying legislation was signed into Massachusetts law on May 3, 2010, and a “Phoebe’s Law” has been proposed as a national anti-bullying legislation.

Harassment

In 2010, a case of alleged "sexual harassment" was settled when the family of a Brockton 6-year-old first-grader received a $180,000 settlement. School officials had suspended the then-six year old and accused him of sexual harassment for touching the skin at the waistband of a girl's pants. The family said it was horseplay and maintained that the girl had touched the boy first. The settlement ordered the superintended to erase all school records of the sexual harassment allegation and implement training on sexual harassment policy. The parents have since moved the boy to a different school. 

Harassment
A lawsuit was brought against the Barnstable school district by the parents of a kindergarten student, alleging that she was sexually harassed by a third grader two or three times a week when she rode the bus, and the school did nothing about it.  When they started driving her to school, the harassment continued in the school hallways.  The parents accused the school of violating Title IX of the Education Act Amendments of 1972 which states that "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance."  The US Supreme Court has ruled that sexual harassment by one student of another could qualify as a Title IX violation if the school system was "deliberately indifferent" to it.  In the Barnstable case, the federal district court ruled in 2006 that because no further act of sexual harassment occurred after the parents gave the school notice of it, the school district could not be held liable.

MICHIGAN

FIRST AMENDMENT 
In 2008, the US Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit ruled that the rights of a student at Handley Elementary School were not violated when he was barred from selling candy canes that had Christmas messages attached as part of a class project. The court ruled that under the Supreme Court decision in Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, the principal had the right to control school-sponsored speech.

(The US Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit has jurisdiction over Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee as well as Michigan). 

FIRST AMENDMENT 
Also in 2008, the US Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit upheld as “reasonable” the “time, place and manner” restrictions that Jefferson Middle School officials imposed on a student who wanted to distribute anti-abortion literature during the school day. The court agreed with the school district that barring the student from distributing the flyers in the hallways was acceptable because it was “viewpoint neutral” and the hallways were not a “public forum” open to indiscriminate use by the public.

Freedom of Expression
Bretton Barber wore a T-shirt to Dearborn High School in Michigan with a picture of President Bush and the caption "International Terrorist." The 16-year-old student was told he should take off the shirt or go home.  He refused to remove the shirt and left school.  He filed a federal free speech lawsuit with the help of the ACLU, and won his case in October 2003, with the district court judge stating that "there is no evidence that the T-shirt created any disturbance or disruption" at school.  The judge also rejected the school district's position that school is an inappropriate place for political debate, maintaining that on the contrary, "students benefit when school officials provide an environment where they can openly express their diverging viewpoints and when they learn to tolerate the opinions of others."

Freedom of Expression
In November 2003, Alexander Smith was largely – but not entirely – victorious in the lawsuit he brought after he was suspended for 10 days from Pleasant High School for reading aloud to friends at his lunch table a commentary criticizing the school's new tardiness policy and calling the school principal and assistant principal names.  The judge ruled that the Michigan state law which required the suspension or expulsion of students who engaged in a "verbal assault" in school was, as Smith had claimed, unconstitutional.  But the judge also said administrators had the right to discipline the student because of the "vicious and personal" names he had called school officials. 

Discrimination
In early 2006 the mother of the only Black student at a school in Frankfurt, Michigan filed a lawsuit on behalf of her daughter, stating that school administrators had forced the third grader to use a separate restroom and other students had taunted her with racial slurs. 

Harassment

A high school student of the Hudson Area Schools district experienced increasingly escalating bullying and sexual harassment in school hallways and locker rooms. The student and his parents reported the abuses but nothing was done to stop them.  After the parents brought a sexual harassment lawsuit against the school district, the district took action under their anti-bullying policy. However, the family argued that the school should have done more than just stop the specific incidents, and instead taken measures such as implementing monitors. In 2010, the federal district court jury agreed with the parents and found the school district liable for not providing the student with a safe environment. The ruling held that there should be a rigorous effort by the administration to stop bullying in schools altogether, instead of preventing or retroactively dealing with specific incidents as they occur.

MINNESOTA

Freedom of Expression

The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit found three essays which a Cook County high school student wrote in a creative writing class to be a "true threat" and not protected speech under the First Amendment.  The essays depicted the murder of a teacher by a student who had been expelled, and his subsequent suicide.  They contained references to the Columbine killings.  The essays were turned over to the poice and the student was examined by a psychiatrist but found not to be dangerous or mentally ill. 

(The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has jurisdiction over Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota, Nebraska and South Dakota as well as Minnesota.)

Freedom of Expression
A US district court judge ruled that a high school student's rights were violated when the principal of the high school in Woodbury, Minnesota had told him to take off a sweatshirt that read "Straight Pride."  The judge said the school had failed to show that the shirt could disrupt the educational process.

Dress Codes

In 2008, a student at a middle school in Hutchinson, Minnesota sued his school after being barred from wearing a Pro-Life T-shirt. In an out of court settlement, the school agreed to pay attorney fees and $1 in damages.

Sexual Harassment
In the early 1990s, Katy Lyle was awarded a $15,000 settlement for "alleged mental anguish and suffering" brought on by the refusal of school officials at Central High School in Duluth to deal with graffiti aimed at her in the boys' bathroom.  The sexually-explicit graffiti, which fueled incessant taunts, remained on the walls for 18 months despite more than 15 complaints by her mother to the school.  The bathroom was finally scrubbed clean by her brother on a visit home from college.  

Equal Access

In 2005, two members of Straights and Gays for Equality (SAGE) at Maple Grove Senior High sued the Osseo School District, claiming that the group was entitled to the same means of advertising their meetings to the student body as other school groups that are "noncurricular." A federal district court judge ruled in the students' favor and the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit refused to hear an appeal by the school district. In September 2007 the same district court judge ruled that the school must give the group the same access for meetings, communicating with fellow students and other rights as that enjoyed by student groups whose activities are related to the school's curriculum ("curricular"). They should, for example, be able to post posters in the halls and use the school's pubic address system. In August 2008, the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed this ruling.

Discrimination

In December 2009, Constance McMillen asked her Itawamba County School District if she could bring her girlfriend to the high school prom, despite the ban on same-sex prom dates. The school board refused to allow her to bring a female date to prom or wear a tuxedo, and eventually cancelled the senior prom altogether. McMillen and the ACLU brought the issue to the US District Court, which ruled that the school district violated McMillen’s First Amendment rights. The school district then settled the case by agreeing to include sexual orientation in their non-discrimination policy, and paying $35,000. However, the district still insisted that it did nothing wrong despite the court’s decision. In the ruling, the judge did not force the school district to hold a prom because there was a private prom being organized. This, however, was cancelled after McMillen attempted to buy tickets to the event. Then, McMillen was notified of a new, official prom that she attended to discover only five other students in attendance, while the rest of her graduating class was at a secret parent-organized prom about 30 miles away.

Due Process
In 2006, the ACLU took up the case of three displaced boys who were expelled after getting into a fight at school.  The boys, two of whom have special needs, recently migrated to Mississippi from New Orleans after being displaced by Hurricane Katrina.  School officials have not stated what disciplinary action, if any, it will be taken against the other boys involved in the fight.  The usual punishment is a 10-day suspension.   

MISSOURI

Freedom of Expression (US Supreme Court) – Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier (1988)
In 1988 the US Supreme Court gave school officials the authority to censor student expression in curricular and extra-curricular activities that could "reasonably" be related to the school. 

The case arose in 1983 when the principal of Hazelwood East High School in St. Louis censored the Spectrum, the student newspaper, by removing the middle pages because he didn't like two stories on pregnancy and divorce. He took this action in spite of the fact that the statement of policy of the journalism class which produced the paper and School Board policy embraced the Tinker standard upholding student rights to freedom of expression unless that expression substantially disrupted the running of the school or invaded the rights of others.   He later argued that he found the articles were inappropriate for young teenagers and involved possible invasions of privacy.  (When the articles were published two years later by a St. Louis paper, few people could figure out what the fuss was all about).  The principal did not consult with students before removing the two articles he didn't like and four others that appeared on the same pages, and then sending the paper to the printer. 

When editors Cathy Kuhlmeier and Leslie Smart went to court on grounds that their First Amendment rights had been violated, the district court upheld the school, but the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled for the students.  Then the US Supreme Court, by 5-3, declared that the principal had a "valid educational purpose" for censoring the paper.  The opinion written by Justice White maintained that "A school need not tolerate student speech that is inconsistent with its basic educational mission, even though the government could not censor similar speech outside the school...Educators do not offend the First Amendment by exercising editorial control over the style and content of student speech in school-sponsored expressive activities so long as their actions are reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns."

In its decision, the Supreme Court majority stated that it is not overturning its "Tinker standard."  Individual students still have the right to express their personal views on school premises.   But, the court said, school officials do have the authority to regulate "school-sponsored publications, theatrical productions, and other expressive activities that students, parents, and members of the public might reasonably perceive to bear the imprimatur of the school.  These activities may fairly be characterized as part of the school curriculum, whether or not they occur in a traditional classroom setting, so long as they are supervised by faculty members and designed to impart particular knowledge or skills to student participants and audiences."      

In his dissent, Justice William Brennan did not buy the argument that there should be a difference between individual student expression protected by the Tinker standard and "school-sponsored expression."  Calling the principal's action a case of "brutal censorship," he declared, "Censorship...in no way furthers the curricular purposes of a student newspaper, unless one believes that the purpose of the school newspaper is to teach students that the press ought never report bad news, express unpopular views, or print a thought that might upset its sponsors...The Court opens its analysis in this case by purporting to reaffirm Tinker's time-tested proposition that public-school students 'do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.'  That is an ironic introduction to an opinion that denudes high-school students of much of the First Amendment protection that Tinker itself prescribed.  Instead of 'teach(ing) children to respect the diversity of ideas that is fundamental to the American system,' and 'that our Constitution is a living reality, not parchment preserved under glass,' the Court today 'teach(es) youth to discount important principles of our government as mere platitudes.'  The young men and women of Hazelwood East expected a civics lesson, but not the one the Court teaches them today."

1. Listen to the oral arguments: http://www.oyez.org/cases/1980-1989/1987/1987_86_836

2. Read the decision: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=484&invol=260

Freedom of Expression

A panel of the  US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled in 2009 that school officials in Farmington High School were justified in suspending students who wore Confederate flag clothing in violation of school policy.  In 1995 the school adopted a policy prohibiting "dress that materially disrupts the educational environment."  Confederate flags and symbols were specifically barred in 2005 after several racially-charged incidents aimed at the small number of Black students.  The court upheld the district court ruling which said that school officials had not violated the First Amendment "because they had reason to believe that students displaying the Confederate flag would cause a substantial and material disruption."

(The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has jurisdiction in Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota as well as Missouri.)

Freedom of Expression - Internet

A federal district court has denied the request of the Hannibal Public School District that it dismiss a student's claims that his First Amendment rights had been violated.  The court said the school failed to prove that the emails the student sent to a friend from off campus contained "true threats" which were not protected by the First Amendment.  After hearing about the emails, school authorities had suspended the student for 10 days.

Dress Code
In January 2006 a senior in Jackson, Missouri who was ordered to change his clothes because he wore a kilt to a school dance received a letter of apology from the school superintendent.  The student, Nathan Warmack, had worn the kilt to honor his Scottish heritage.  The superintendent said he will train staff in the proper interpretation of the school's dress code.

Dress Code

In 2007, a federal judge ruled in favor of Farmington High School officials who prevented students from wearing clothing featuring a confederate flag. The judge stated that the clothing could be banned because of racially motivated incidents at the school.

Dress Code
A federal lawsuit was recently filed on behalf of Brad Mathewson, a 16-year-old student who was disciplined at his high school for wearing a T-shirt that bore a pink triangle with the words, "Make a Difference!"  He got the shirt from a Gay-Straight Alliance at a school he had previously attended.  He was told to turn it inside out or go home and change.  The shirt had caused no disruption at the school. 

Searches
The ACLU intervened when fourth grade students at the Adrian Elementary School near Kansas City, Missouri were searched and in some cases stripped after a student lost track of a war medal that had been brought to school.  The medal was later found on the floor.   School officials agreed to apologize to parents and to review the school's search policy.

First Amendment
EarlY in 2002, a Great Falls High School senior, Kenny Volk, was suspended for posting photos of female classmates on his personal web site under the heading "10 hottest freshman girls."  The principal of the school, who had asked him not to post the pictures, said he was guilty of "insubordination."  Other students staged a protest outside the principal's office saying that Volk's First Amendment rights had been violated and a few days later, a district court judge issued a temporary injunction against the school and Volk returned to class.  But the injunction was only temporary, and when it expired, the school board voted unanimously to have him transferred to a different school.  Rather than pursue a lawsuit against the school, Volk decided to move on to university and eventually to law school. 

NEBRASKA

Freedom of Expression

In 2008, 30 students at Millard South High School in Omaha, Nebraska were suspended for wearing a T-shirt stating “Julius RIP.” The shirt had been created to remember a student who was murdered during the summer. But school officials claimed “RIP” was a gang symbol. After the ACLU got involved, the school district removed the suspensions and allowed the students to wear the shirt.

Freedom of Expression
A Nebraska valedictorian was told in 2005 that her diploma would be withheld if she went ahead with a speech using a word the school considered offensive although it was not obscene.  After the ACLU intervened, she was able to give the speech using her choice of words. 

Freedom of Expression
In 2005, Millard high school told a student he could not hand out flyers against the Iraq War.  The flyers were confiscated, and he was told he would be suspended if he tried to hand them out.  After the intervention of the ACLU, the school agreed to let the student distribute the flyers in the "place and manner" indicated by the student handbook.

Freedom of Assembly
Students at Norfolk Senior High wanted to form a Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) and have it meet at the school during "club hour."   The school administration and school board denied their request even though other non-curriculum clubs (including religious club and an anti-racism club) meet at the school and have the privileges requested by the students.   It took a letter from the ACLU to convince the school that the GSA should be treated in the same manner as other student clubs.

NEVADA

Freedom of Expression - Dress Code

In 2008 the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the dress code adopted by Clark County School District did not violate student rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The suit was brought after students at Liberty High School faced punishment for violating the new dress code that required them to wear khaki bottoms and a solid-colored shirt without any logos or printed messages beside the school logo. The court decided that the school district could adopt the policy in the interest of increasing achievement, promoting safety and enhancing a positive school environment and that students could “express themselves through other and traditional methods of communication throughout the school day.”

(The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has jurisdiction over Alaska, Arizona, California, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington as well as Nevada).

Harassment
In 2009, the Washoe County School District agreed to pay $350,000 to a former North Valleys High School student to settle a harassment suit. The school district also agreed to establish new anti-discrimination policies. The student claimed that she had been called names and told "you are not one of us" and "leave or we will kill you" for wearing a hijab, a traditional hair covering worn by many Muslim women. When she appealed to school officials for help, she was allegedly ignored or told that she should not wear the scarf.

Harassment
Washoe County School District has reached a $451,000 settlement with a gay student who was beaten, spit on, and had his life threatened at three different high schools in Reno.  The school district also agreed to implement policies protecting gay and lesbian students.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Zero Tolerance for Expression
The New Hampshire Supreme Court in 2002 overturned a Dover High School student's conviction for disorderly conduct.  The student had told a teacher that he "might have to shoot up the school" if she didn't hug him.  Although the teacher thought he was joking, she reported him to officials.  Detectives searched his home but found no weapons.  

NEW JERSEY

Searches in Schools (US Supreme Court) - New Jersey v. T.L.O (1985)
In New Jersey v. T.L.O. the US Supreme Court ruled for the first time when and how students could be searched in schools. T.L.O. were the initials of a 14-year-old girl at Piscataway High School who, with another student, was suspected of smoking in the bathroom, which was a violation of a school rule.  A teacher took both students to the office of the Assistant Vice Principal Theodore Choplick.  One admitted smoking but T.L.O. denied it.  Mr. Choplick insisted on searching her purse, and found a package of cigarette rolling papers, some marijuana, a pipe, some empty plastic bags, money, and a list of names.  He then notified her mother and the police.  After T.L.O confessed to selling marijuana at the school, delinquency charges were brought against her.  She argued in juvenile court that the evidence, and her confession, should be thrown out under the "exclusionary rule" because there was no warrant or "probable cause" to search her and her Fourth Amendment rights had been violated.  The juvenile court decided there was a "reasonable" basis to conduct the search, and sentenced her to a year's probation.

The US Supreme Court then reviewed the constitutionality of the search.  It asked: "How, then, should we strike the balance between the schoolchild's legitimate expectations of privacy and the school's equally legitimate need to maintain an environment in which learning can take place?"  Ruling that the requirement of a warrant before a search could take place was "unsuited to the school   environment," the Court decided that "a search of a student by a teacher or other school official will be justified when there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search will turn up evidence that the student has violated or is violating either the law or the rules of the school." Students could not simply be searched at random at the whim of the school.  A search "will be permissible in its scope when the measures adopted are reasonably related to the objectives of the search and not excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of the student and the nature of the infraction."

Dissenting justices in the 6-3 ruling were troubled by the vague "reasonableness" standard laid down by the majority.  They said its "only definite content is that it is not the same test as the 'probable cause' standard found in the text of the Fourth Amendment.  In adopting this unclear, unprecedented, and unnecessary departure from generally applicable Fourth Amendment standards, the Court carves out a broad exception to standards that this Court has developed over years of considering Fourth Amendment problems." 

In the words of Justice Stevens, "The schoolroom is the first opportunity most citizens have to experience the power of government...the values they learn there, they take with them in life.  One of our most cherished ideals is the one contained in the Fourth Amendment: that the government may not intrude on the personal privacy of its citizens without a warrant or compelling circumstance.  The Court's decision today is a curious moral for the Nation's youth... ."

Freedom of Expression
In June 2006 a federal magistrate ordered the Washington Township school district in New Jersey to pay the legal fees of Thomas Sypniewski, Jr., who was a high school senior when he was suspended in 2001 for wearing a T-shirt featuring "Top Ten Reasons You Might Be a Redneck Sports Fan."  The word "Redneck" was considered by the school to be a violation of its anti-harassment policy.  In 2002 the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit had ruled that the student's free expression rights were violated since the shirt had no history of causing a disruption at the school.

(The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has jurisdiction over Delaware, Pennsylvania, and the Virgin Islands as well as New Jersey.)

Freedom of Expression
The US Supreme Court in 1990 refused the appeal of Patterson v. FBI, a lower court ruling that Todd Patterson could not see the files which the FBI had been keeping on him since he was a sixth grader in New Jersey in 1983.  Then aged 11, Todd wrote to 169 countries for a world encyclopedia he was compiling.  A few months later, after his family suspected their phone was tapped, the FBI visited the house and demanded to know the purpose of Todd's letters.  In 1987 Todd needed security clearance to participate in a government internship program and wrote the FBI requesting to see his file.  He finally received a heavily censored version, and then took unsuccessful legal action to get access to the entire file.

Freedom of Expression

In 2005, Oceanport school officials agreed to pay $117,500 to a middle school student for punishing him for the website he created on his own time and on his home computer criticizing his middle school. The student had been suspended for a week, and prevented from playing on the baseball team for a month and going on a school trip. The school presented no proof that his website caused a disruption in the school.

Zero Tolerance for Expression
The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld the action of school officials who, in 2000, suspended a five-year-old kindergartner from Wilson Elementary School in Sayreville, New Jersey for pointing his fingers and saying "I'm going to shoot you" during a game of "cops and robbers" at recess.    The US Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in the case.

(The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has jurisdiction over Delaware, Pennsylvania and the Virgin Islands as well as New Jersey.) 

Dress Code

In 2009, a New Jersey appellate court ruled that a state law allowing local school boards to adopt uniform dress codes is not unconstitutional just because it fails to require that codes adopted by school districts include an opt-out provision. While the law does not make an opt-out option mandatory, it does say that districts may provide such an option, and if they do, students should not be discriminated against because their parents choose not to comply with the uniform policy.  The case arose when a student at Pleasantville High School was punished for refusing to comply with the school's dress code and his parents sued the school.  The court ruled that while parents have a fundamental right to control their child's upbringing and education, that right is qualified in a school setting. 

Dress Code
Two fifth graders in Bayonne, N.J. protested their school district’s new school uniform policy by wearing a button with a historical photo of Hitler Youth members and a “No School Uniforms” message superimposed on it. They were threatened with suspension. Their parents then sued the school on First Amendment grounds. The federal district court judge supported their free speech claims, ruling that the buttons had not caused any disruption in the school and the photo, which did not show swastikas, “might easily be mistaken for a historical photograph of the Boy Scouts.”

Dress Code
To protest Hasbrouck Heights High School's ban on shorts, senior Michael Coviello wore a skirt to school and was sent home. The school agreed to allow him to wear skirts to protest the dress code after the ACLU intervened.

 NEW MEXICO

NEW YORK

Harassment

A gay high school student sued the Mohawk Central School District for ignoring and failing to take measures against physical assaults, repeated bullying, and threats.  According to the ACLU, “school districts nationwide have the responsibility to protect children from bullying and harassment based on sexual orientation and gender non-conformity. No child should live in fear of going to school.” They reached a settlement in March of 2010, including compensations, payment for therapy sessions for the student, implementation of harassment policy reviews and training, and required annual reports on the district’s progress.

Discipline

In 2009 the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled that the state constitution does not require a school district to provide alternative education to a student who had been given a long-term suspension.  The student at Southside High School in Beaufort County had been suspended for a semester for her part in a fight.  The court found that she does not have the fundamental right to an education.

Dress Code
Late in 2008, the state court of appeals struck down as “unconstitutionally vague” portions of Durham Public Schools’ “anti-gang” policy, including a ban on wearing certain kinds of clothing, jewelry, or symbols or using certain gestures that “may be evidence of membership or affiliation in any gang.” The case was remanded for further proceedings.

Freedom of Religion - Dress Codes
In 2000, a nine-year-old public school student at Mclver Elementary School in Halifax was allowed to return to school after a suspension.  He had refused to wear the school uniform because it conflicted with his family's religious beliefs.  In a settlement between the ACLU and school officials the school finally allowed the student a religious exemption and is going to amend the school uniform policy.  The school also agreed to pay the cost of the student's education while he was suspended.

First Amendment - Censorship
The ACLU successfully sued a the Drake, North Dakota school district in support of a teacher who taught Kurt Vonnegut's book Slaughterhouse Five which a local minister called "a tool of the devil."  An out-of-court settlement permitted the book to be taught in 11th and 12th grade English classes and awarded the teacher $5,000.

OHIO

OKLAHOMA

Drug Testing in Schools (US Supreme Court) - Pottawatomie v. Earls (2002)
In 2002 the Supreme Court decided a second case involving drug testing of participants in extra-curricular activity.  (It had already decided the case of Vernonia v. Acton.)  

Lindsay and Lacey Earls wanted to participate in the choir and Future Farmers of America at Tecumseh High School.  When the school in 1998 required random drug-testing in all extra-curricular activities involving competition with other schools, the girls were subjected to urinalysis on several occasions.  They always tested negative.     

Finally, they brought a lawsuit against the school and lost in the federal district court.  They appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.  It agreed that drug-testing students who engaged in extracurricular activities other than athletics (where the Supreme Court had already ruled in favor of drug testing) was a violation of their Fourth Amendment rights.

The school district appealed to the Supreme Court.   In a 5-4 ruling, it upheld the school's drug-testing program.  The court majority said the drug policy was "entirely reasonable" given the "nation-wide epidemic of drug use."  Writing in dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg argued that "the particular testing program upheld today is not reasonable, it is capricious, even perverse" since it was targeting motivated students who were "least likely to be at risk from illicit drugs and their damaging effects."

Although the ruling addressed "competitive" extra-curricular activities, it opened the door wide to drug testing in all extra-curricular activities, and could lead to the random testing of all students.  Critics fear it would be counterproductive, causing students to drop out of the very activities that could keep them engaged and away from drugs.

See Lindsay Earls talk about her case: http://aclu.tv/node/66
Read the decision: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=01-332

Dress Code
In May 2004, a lawsuit was settled between the Muskogee, Oklahoma Public School District and the US Department of Justice.  The school agreed it had violated the constitutional rights of Nashala Hearn, a sixth grade Muslim girl, when it prevented her from wearing a Muslim headscarf known as a hijab to the Benjamin Franklin Science Academy.  She was suspended twice during the 2003-4 school year for wearing the headscarf to school, even though the school allowed other students to wear head coverings for non-religious reasons.  Under the settlement the school district will revise its dress code policy to permit exceptions for religious reasons.  

Zero Tolerance
After the ACLU intervened, school officials in Mustang Middle School called for removing the record of her suspension from the file of a 14-year-old who was punished in 2005 for possession of prescription drugs.  The school subsequently adopted a policy requiring all prescription drugs to be checked in at the school office. 

OREGON

Drug Testing in Schools (US Supreme Court)– Vernonia v. Acton (1995)
In 1991, seventh grader James Acton challenged the drug-testing program initiated by his school in Vernonia, Oregon.  The program required students to provide a urine sample for drug testing before they could participate in athletics, and afterwards do so on a random basis.  Acton and his parents maintained that this kind of testing, without any suspicion that the individual being tested had done anything wrong, was a violation of a student's Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

The Actons lost their case in the district court, but won in the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.  The school district then appealed to the Supreme Court.  By the time the case was heard, nearly five years after the drug-testing program was initiated, there had been no more than two or three positive urine test results – which didn't seem to indicate that there was a major drug program in the small town. 

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the students' Fourth Amendment rights were outweighed by the school's interest in fighting drugs.  The court said that since student athletes shower and change clothes in front of each other, urine testing wasn't a big invasion of privacy.  And because athletes served as "role models" for the student community, it was important for them to be drug free.   

An important dissent was written by former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.  She expressed her concern that the court had thrown out the Fourth Amendment by doing away with the requirement that there had to be "individualised suspicion" – the suspicion that an individual had done something wrong – in order to search that person.    

The Supreme Court ruling opened the door for schools to institute drug-testing programs for after school sports programs. 

Listen to the oral arguments: http://www.oyez.org/cases/1990-1999/1994/1994_94_590
Read the decision: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=515&invol=646

PENNSYLVANIA

Flag Salute in Schools (US Supreme Court) - Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940)
In 1935, two Jehovah's Witness students, 12-year-old Lillian Gobitis and her 10-year-old brother William were expelled from school for refusing to salute the flag in their Minersville, Pennsylvania school.  Saluting the flag violated their religious beliefs because it was a form of "idolatry" or worship of "graven images."

After both the federal district and appeals court decided in the students' favor, the US Supreme Court in its 1940 decision in Minersville School District v. Gobitis ruled 8-1 in favor of the school.   The court held that instilling patriotism was a legitimate goal and that schools should train students in "a common feeling for a common country."  It was not the role of the court to interfere with educational policy or to be "the school board for the country."

Read the decision: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=310&invol=586

Religion in Schools (US Supreme Court)- Abington School District v. Schempp (1963)
A year after the US Supreme Court struck down prayer in schools in the case Engel v. Vitale, it re-visited the issue of religion in schools in Abington School District v. Schempp.  Pennsylvania state law had sought to get around the Court's opposition to prayer in school by requiring that "at least ten verses from the Holy Bible shall be read, without comment, at the opening of each public school on each school day."  The verses were from the New Testament. At Abington Senior High School, which the Schempp children attended, the verses were read by students and broadcast to all classrooms through the intercommunications system, followed by the recitation of the Lord's Prayer and then the Pledge of Allegiance. Although students were not required to be present when the verses were read, if they left the room and stood outside in the hall, they would miss public announcements and could also be seen as misfits by their peers.   

The US Supreme Court ruled on behalf of the Schempp family, which had challenged the practice on the grounds that it violated the separation of Church and State.  It declared that "the very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials, and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts.  One's right to...freedom of worship...and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections...In the relationship between man and religion, the State is firmly committed to a position of neutrality."

1. Learn what it was like to be a student plaintiff in this case from Ellery Schempp.
   
2. Listen to the oral arguments: http://www.oyez.org/cases/1960-1969/1962/1962_142
   
3. Read the decision: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=374&invol=203

Flag Salute
The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled in 2004 that a Pennsylvania law requiring schools to inform parents when their children do not participate in the Pledge of Allegiance was a violation of students' First Amendment rights.  The court said the requirement represented "viewpoint discrimination," since it singled out students who chose not to participate in the Pledge and that it chilled student expression.  

(The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has jurisdiction over Delaware, New Jersey, and the Virgin Islands as well as Pennsylvania.) 

Freedom of Expression on the Internet
A panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in a 2-1 split decision ruled in February 2010 that the Blue Mountain School District did not violate the rights of a middle school student who was suspended for 10 days for creating a parody profile of her principal. The parody, which accused the principal of “hitting on students,” was created at her home but reportedly created a "buzz" in the school. It did not mention him by name, but featured his photo and position. In its ruling, the federal district court found that although the online profile did not cause substantial disruption at the school, it contained the kind of lewd and vulgar speech that was denied First Amendment protections by the US Supreme Court in its Bethel School District v. Fraser decision. According to lower court, the fact that the profile was created off campus did not mean the student could not be punished, since “the lewd and vulgar off-campus speech had an effect on-campus.”  The Appeals Court agreed that school officials are not left powerless to discipline a student "simply because the disruption to the learning environment originates from a computer located off campus."

Freedom of Expression on the Internet
In a nearly identical case, a panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuitruled unanimously in February 2010 that the Hermitage School District had violated a student’s First Amendment rights for punishing him for creating a mock MySpace profile of his school principal. When school officials found out who had created the profile, they placed him in an alternative education program.  The lower court judge had said that the punishment was unconstitutional because the student created the profile off campus and it did not cause a “substantial disruption” at the school. The Appeals Court agreed and stated that it would be "an unseemly and dangerous precedent to allow the state in the guise of school authorities to reach into a child's home and control his/her actions there to the same extent that they can control that child when he/she participates in school sponsored activities."

Freedom of Expression - Cell Phones

A Tunkhannock Area High School teacher confiscated a student’s cell phone for making a call on campus in January 2009.  Subsequently, the student was called to the Principal’s office where she was suspended for three days and told that her phone had been turned over to the district attorney for containing “sexts” or explicit photos of herself. The district attorney then threatened to charge her with child pornography unless the student attended a re-education course on sexual violence and victimization. A year later, the student and ACLU successfully sued the school and the district attorney.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit decided that the district attorney “may not coerce parents into permitting him to impose on their children his ideas of morality and gender roles.” Additionally, it ruled that various assignments that were required in the re-education program were in violation of the student’s First Amendment freedom against compelled speech.

Freedom of Expression on the Internet
In 2007, Hillary Transue, a student who had never been in any kind of trouble, was sentenced by Judge Mark Ciavarella, Jr. to three months in a juvenile detention center for creating a spoof MySpace page mocking the assistant principal at her Wilkes-Barre High School. She was one of an estimated 5,000 students sent to two privately-run juvenile detention facilities by Judge Ciavarella and his colleague, Michael Conahan. Conahan had secured a contract to keep the centers full and the two received kickbacks amounting to more than 2.5 million for keeping a stream of juveniles headed into detention. In March 2009 the judges were sentenced to 87 months in prison as part of a plea agreement.

Free Expression on the Internet
Zachariah Paul, a student at Franklin Regional High School, was suspended for ten days and given five Saturday morning detentions for sending an off campus email to his friends that listed the "Top Ten" reasons he was "always so pissed off" and made fun of a coach at the school.  After going to court to get the suspensions reversed, a federal judge in 2001 awarded him $20,000 in damages and attorney's fees. 

Zero Tolerance for Expression
In 2005, a federal lawsuit was filed by the ACLU on behalf of Anthony Latour, a 14-year-old rap artist who had been expelled from Riverside Beaver School District for rap music he wrote at home and posted on the Internet.  He was expelled after being arrested for songs which were considered "terroristic threats" because they described acts of violence.

Freedom of Expression on the Internet
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2002 ruled in favor of the Bethlehem Area School District which had expelled a 14-year-old for setting up a "Teacher Sux" web site that contained many offensive descriptions of teachers at his middle school.   A jury had ordered his parents to pay $500,000 for invading the privacy of a teacher was so upset by the site she took medical leave. 

Webcam Surveillance

Lower Merion School District in Pennsylvania was sued by a Harriton High School student Blake Robbins and his family in February 2010 and Jalil Hasan and his family in July, 2010 for using webcams equipped in school-issued MacBook computers to spy on students at home, the websites they visited, and excerpts of their online chats. Robbins found out about the spying when the assistant principal alleged that he was engaging in improper behavior at home and showed photos to prove it. An investigation revealed that the software captured nearly 58,000 images in the last two years, including photos of Robbins and Hasan at their respective homes, sleeping and changing clothes. The two class-action suits are currently pending in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Searches
In the late 1990s, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld the random searches of students' lockers at Harborcreek High School by school officials and police using drug-sniffing dogs.  The court said students "have limited expectation of privacy while in the school environment" and there was "reasonable suspicion" that a search would reveal drugs.  The court reversed a lower court opinion that found the reasons for the search of the lockers were impermissibly vague. 

Searches
In the mid 1990s a federal district court judge ruled that the rights of six students had been violated when they were strip-searched in a junior high school in New Castle.  The searches took place after it was reported that the plaintiffs had been seen smoking marijuana earlier in the day.  No drugs were found when the students were asked to remove their clothing. 

Freedom of Expression - Cell Phones
A federal judge in Pennsylvania in March 2009 issued a temporary restraining order blocking child pornography charges against three teenage girls who appeared semi nude in photos that were distributed by cell phone in their high school. In Pennsylvania, it is a felony to have or distribute pictures of provocatively exposed minors. The girls, who are students at Tunkhannock High School, did not distribute the pictures and the students who did distribute them have not been charged.

Freedom of Expression

West Shore School District has reversed its course in response to a lawsuit, and dropped its ban on a student wearing a T-shirt containing the message "Abortion is not healthcare."  The student had maintained that his shirt caused no disruption in the school.  The two sides have until early in 2010 to come to a final agreement or the case will go to trial.

RHODE ISLAND

Religion in Schools (US Supreme Court)- Lee v. Weisman (1992)
In 1992, the US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that school prayers at school graduations violated the First Amendment's separation of Church and State.  This was the first major school prayer decision by the Supreme Court since it struck down Alabama's public school "moment of silence" in 1985.  In 1962 in Engel v. Vitale the US Supreme Court had first ruled that non-denominational prayers in schools violated the First Amendment.

Lee v. Weisman arose in 1989, when Daniel Weisman brought a lawsuit against Nathan Bishop Middle School in Providence after Rabbi Leslie Gutterman delivered a nondenominational invocation at his daughter's graduation.  Mr. Weisman had also objected three year's earlier when a Baptist minister delivered a prayer at his elder daughter's graduation from the same school.  The school did not respond to his complaint.    

Both a district court and the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit agreed with Daniel Weisman that the use of prayer during graduation ceremonies violated the First Amendment.  But when the Supreme Court accepted the case for review, it seemed possible that the court might use it as an opportunity to revise the so-called "Lemon test" and permit prayer in schools.  The "Lemon test" is the standard that had guided the Supreme Court since it decided the case of Lemon v. Kurtzman in 1971.  Under the Lemon standard, a practice or statute was only constitutional if it had a secular purpose, neither promoted nor hurt religion, and if it did not foster "an excessive governmental entanglement with religion." By a single vote the Supreme Court in Lee v. Weisman left the Lemon standard more or less intact.

Listen to the oral argument: http://www.oyez.org/cases/1990-1999/1991/1991_90_1014
Read the decision: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=505&invol=577

Zero Tolerance

A senior at Portsmouth High School who was an avid student of medieval history was barred from appearing in his senior yearbook photo wearing a chain mail coat and a prop sword over his shoulder. The school district said the photo violated its "zero tolerance" policy for weapons, even though the school's own mascot is a Revolutionary War soldier with a rifle. The ACLU filed a lawsuit on the student's behalf in December 2006. Early in 2007 a settlement was reached in which the student agreed to drop the lawsuit and in return, the school would publish the photo and not appeal a ruling supporting the student by the state commissioner of education. 

SOUTH CAROLINA

Freedom of Expression

In 2009 a federal district court upheld the Latta School District's ban on Confederate flag displays in school.  A lawsuit had been brought by the parents of a student who had been disciplined for wearing T-shirts with depictions of the Confederate flag.  The court held that because of past incidents of racial tension, school officials could reasonably predict that "substantial disruption" could be caused by the flag display. 

Searches
On November 5, 2003 police staged an early morning raid on Stratford High School, Goose Creek, South Carolina.  The police in SWAT team uniforms and bulletproof vests pointed guns at students' heads, and forced other students to kneel, face a wall or lie on the floor in handcuffs while a dog sniffed them for drugs.  No drugs or weapons were found. The school is mostly white, but the raid occurred when most of those at the school were Black students who had arrived on an early morning bus.  One of them, Joshua Ody, said "I felt like I had less rights than other people that day."

The raid was recorded by a police camera and the school's surveillance cameras.  After the videotape was shown on state and national television, there were demonstrations in opposition and support of the principal who had called in the police.  He resigned early the following year. 

The ACLU meanwhile had filed a "class action" lawsuit on the students' behalf, which charged school officials and the police with violating students' rights to be free from unlawful search and seizure and with the use of excessive force.  A settlement was reached in April 2006 that sets a new standard for students' constitutional rights.  If police do not have a warrant, they will need either probable cause, pressing circumstances or voluntary consent to operate on school grounds.  The settlement also establishes a $1.6 million dollar fund to compensate the students and help cover medical costs arising from the incident. 

View a videotape of the raid: http://stream.realimpact.net/?file=realimpact/aclu/20031205_ACLU_DrugBust.rm

SOUTH DAKOTA

TENNESSEE

Freedom of Expression

In August 2008 the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld the policy of William Blount High School of banning the wearing of Confederate flag symbols.  The students who wore the symbols had claimed that their First Amendment rights were violated by the ban, since no disruption had occurred and other controversial symbols were permitted in the school.  But the Appeals Court said the ban was constitutional "because of the disruptive potential of the flag in a school where racial tension is high." 

(The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has jurisdiction over Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio as well as Tennessee).

Freedom of Expression

Two weeks after the ACLU filed a lawsuit alleging viewpoint discrimination, Metro Nashville schools lifted its filter on gay-themed web sites.  Students had been able to access sites that aimed to undermine gay desires, but were blocked from such sites as Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays and the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network.

Freedom of Expression
In 2005, the principal of the Eagleville School District withheld a student's diploma because he found his valedictorian speech to be offensive. One line of the speech read: “You have given us the minimum required attention and education that is needed to master any station at any McDonald’s anywhere.” This was immediately followed by: “Of course, I am only kidding. Eagleville is a fine institute of higher learning, with a superb faculty and staff.” 

When the valedictorian refused to remove the controversial lines from his speech, and delivered it as written, the principal shut down the sound system and refused to hand him his diploma.  The student called the ACLU, and soon after the school officials announced that they would return his diploma and allow the boy to graduate. 

Dress Code

In 2008, a federal district court jury failed to reach a verdict in a case concerning the Anderson County School District dress code which banned clothing featuring the Confederate flag. Tommy DeFoe had been suspended more than 40 times for wearing Confederate flag apparel. School officials argued the ban was necessary because of a history of racial tension in the school district.

TEXAS

Religion in schools (US Supreme Court)- Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe (2000)
The US Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that overtly Christian student-led prayer over the public address system at public high school football games was a violation of the First Amendment's  Establishment Clause.  The case had been brought by two families, one Mormon and the other Catholic.  The court's decision states that school sponsorship of a religious message – such as prayers delivered by students over public-address systems at football games – is unconstitutional because it sends the message to "non adherents that they are outsiders...and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders." 

1. Listen to the oral argument: http://www.oyez.org/cases/1990-1999/1999/1999_99_62
   
2. Read the decision: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=99-62

Equal Protection - Fourteenth Amendment (US Supreme Court)- Plyer v. Doe (1982)
The Texas State Legislature passed a law in 1975 withholding funds for the education of children who were not "legally admitted" to the United States and authorizing schools to deny them admittance.  In 1977, a "class action" lawsuit was brought on behalf of children of Mexican origin who were being denied an education because they were "undocumented aliens"  - that is, they had entered the country without lawful immigration procedures.   

In its 1982 decision in Plyer v. Doe, the US Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote sided with the students.  The majority pointed out that the Fourteenth Amendment ensures "equal protection of the laws" for all persons, not all citizens. "Whatever his status under the immigration laws, an alien is surely a 'person' in any ordinary sense of that term.  Aliens, even aliens whose presence in this country is unlawful, have long been recognized as 'persons' guaranteed due process of the law by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments."  The decision goes on to discuss the "pivotal role of education" in the life of a child and the nation, even though it is not a "right" granted to individuals by the Constitution.  It declares that forcing these children to endure the "stigma of illiteracy" serves no one's interest.  "[W]hatever savings might be achieved by denying these children an education, they are wholly insubstantial in light of the costs involved to these children, the State, and the Nation," the court said.

Read the decision: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=457&invol=202

Religion

In 2009, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that a Texas law requiring local school boards to set aside one minute of silence in every school for prayer or reflection does not violate the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. Lower courts have given opposing rulings on state “moment of silence” laws since the US Supreme Court in 1985 struck down an Alabama law on the grounds that its sole purpose was to promote religion and it therefore crossed the line separating Church and State. Three months before the ruling in the Texas case, a federal court in Illinois found that state’s “moment of silence” statute to be unconstitutional.

(The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has jurisdiction in Louisiana and Mississippi as well as Texas.)

Personal Appearance – Hair
The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in 1972 in the case Karr v. Schmidt that students had no constitutionally-protected right to wear their hair in public high schools as they preferred. The decision overturned the ruling of a federal district court which had heard Chesley Karr's challenge to the student grooming and dress code in his El Paso high school.  Because Karr refused to cut his hair, he was denied admission to Coronado High School for his junior year. 

The court said the wearing of long hair to convey individuality and express a message to the world was not entitled to the protection of the First Amendment.  Neither, said the court, was the right to wear hair at any length part of the fundamental individual "liberty" protected by the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause.  And the court decided that limiting the right of male students to wear their hair long while permitting female students to do so was not a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.   In the view of the court, "The school authorities seek only to accomplish legitimate objectives...the elimination of classroom distraction, the avoidance of violence between long and short-haired students, and the elimination of potential health hazards resulting from long hair in science labs."

The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit had ruled the opposite way two years previously (see Massachusetts).

Freedom of Expression

The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in August 2009 that the dress code of Waxahachie High School which prohibited messages on student clothing except those supporting school activities was a reasonable "time, place and manner" restriction.  Paul Palmer, a sophomore at the high school, had worn shirts saying "San Diego," "John Edwards for President '08" and one with "Freedom of Speech" on the front and the text of the First Amendment on the back, all of which were banned.  After the district court said the student had failed to show that the dress code made him suffer irreparable harm, the Appeals Court upheld the dress code because it was "content-neutral."  The case is being appealed to the US Supreme Court.

Freedom of Expression

The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in October 2009 that a school district in Texas could ban images of the Confederate flag because it was likely that the image could cause a substantial disruption in the school.  The Confederate flag policy had been adopted by Burleson High School in 2002 after there were several racial incidents at the school.  Two female students sued to overturn the policy after they were prohibited from carrying purses featuring the Confederate flag.

Freedom of Expression

In 2007, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that Montwood High School officials were justified in suspending a student who wrote a violent story in his journal. The court stated that schools can punish speech that they believe advocates behavior endangering school safety.

Corporal Punishment

In 2007 the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that an 18-year-old student who had violated school rules by leaving her San Antonio public charter school campus during the school day could be punished with a wooden paddle. The student’s hand was injured when she attempted to block a blow of the paddle. She argued that, as a legal adult, she did not have to spent the entire day at the campus and that she could not then be subjected to corporal punishment. However, the court held that since she chose to enroll in the school and attend after her 18th birthday, the same rules applied to her as to the other students.

Personal Appearance – Hair
In 1997, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that the Bastrop Independent School District's rules concerning the hair length of male students were not a form of discrimination because they did not deny either gender "educational opportunity."  The school had ordered a third grader to cut his five-inch ponytail.  When he refused, he was isolated from the other students and forced to study in a small room with covered windows.  After enduring this isolation for four months, his parents decided to teach him at home.

Freedom of Expression

In March 2006, Latino students from Cypress Ridge High School, some wearing “We are not Criminals” t-shirts, staged a “walk out” from school to protest immigration legislation being considered by Congress. Following the walk-out, the principal organized an assembly to talk about the immigration issue. He then heard that another walk-out was being planned by Latino students, and that other students were planning to wear “Border Patrol” t-shirts in opposition to the Latino students. In an effort to de-fuse the situation, he banned all unauthorized t-shirts and asked teachers to keep students in their classrooms. After more than 100 Latino students walked out again, they were suspended, and their parents were told to leave the school building when they came to complain about the punishment. Some of the suspended students and their parents then filed a federal lawsuit claiming that there was “a pattern and practice” at the school of preventing them from expressing political viewpoints. School officials maintained that they were only trying to prevent the disruption of the educational process and that they did not intentionally discriminate against one particular group of students. The court sided with school officials, ruling that because there was a history of racial tension at the school, they had to balance student rights to freedom of expression against the overriding need to maintain order.

Freedom of Expression
In 1999, thirty years after the Supreme Court issued its pathbreaking ruling in the black armband case of Tinker v. Des Moines (see Iowa), Jennifer Boccia, a 17-year-old honors student, and about ten of her fellow students at Allen High in Allen, Texas decided to wear black armbands to school.  They wanted to show respect for the victims of the Columbine High School shooting and concern that policies the school enacted after Columbine restricting speech, dress and conducting random searches would create a hostile environment at school. Boccia and several other students were immediately suspended.  She took the issue to federal court and won.  The suspension was expunged from her record.    

Harassment

In 2006, a four-year-old pre-kindergarten student in the La Vega school district was given a one-day in-school suspension for rubbing his face in the chest of a class aide when she was hugging him to calm him down.  The boy's father filed a complaint, claiming his son had no idea why he was punished.  The district then downgraded the incident from sexual harassment to "inappropriate physical contact."

UTAH

Freedom of Expression

In June 2007, the US Supreme Court declined to review a case involving the free speech in Williamstown School District. The ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upholding a student’s First Amendment rights was therefore allowed to stand. The student, Zach Guiles, had worn a t-shirt to school calling President Bush “Chicken-Hawk-in Chief” who was engaged on a “World Domination Tour” and featuring pictures that alluded to the President’s alleged former substance abuse problems. The school had told Guiles he could only wear the shirt if he covered up the drug images, as they violated the school’s dress code policy barring all references to drugs on student clothing.

(The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has jurisdiction over New York and Connecticut as well as Vermont).

VIRGINIA

Freedom of Expression
The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled in 2003 against a dress code prohibiting students from wearing clothing that depicts weapons.  The court said that school officials at Jack Jouett Middle School in Albemarle County had violated the First Amendment rights of a 13-year-old student when they told him to turn his T-shirt for the "NRA Sports Shooting Camp" inside out.  The court said the school district had failed to show shirts depicting weapons caused material disruption.  The National Rifle Association had filed the lawsuit on behalf of the student.

Zero Tolerance
In 2002, the US Supreme Court decided not to hear a case from Virginia involving "zero tolerance" discipline.  An eighth grade student had removed a knife from a suicidal classmate and put it inside a binder in his own locker.  He was suspended in February 2000 on grounds that his possession of a knife on school grounds violated the school's zero tolerance policy for weapons and illegal substances.   Two lower federal courts upheld the school's action in suspending the student. School officials said the student should have turned the knife over to them instead of putting it in his locker.  By declining to hear the appeal, the Supreme Court let stand these lower court rulings. 

Freedom of Expression
A federal district court judge decided in the early 1990s that school authorities at Blair Middle School in Norfolk did not infringe no the rights of a 12-year-old when they ordered her to take off a T-shirt that read "Drugs suck!"  The judge said the word "suck" could be considered offensive, vulgar and disruptive n a middle school. 

Personal Appearance – Hair
After the ACLU intervened, Norview Middle School in Norfolk Virginia permitted sixth grader Jesse Doyle to return to class with blue hair.  He had been told he could not come back until his hair was its original color.

Searches
An out-of-court settlement was reached in the late 1990s after between 50 and 60 boys were strip searched at William Monroe High School in Charlottesville in an effort to find $100 that went missing during a gym class.  The money was not found.  The lawsuit had sought $20,000 in damages for each student.

WASHINGTON STATE

Freedom of Expression (US Supreme Court) - Bethel School District v. Fraser (1986)
In 1986 the US Supreme Court narrowed the "Tinker standard" when it ruled 7-2 in the case Bethel School District v. Fraser that a school can ban expression it considered to be "lewd, indecent or offensive" whether or not it caused "substantial disruption" in the school.      

Matthew Fraser, a student at Bethel High in Washington State, had delivered a nomination speech for classmate Jeff Kuhlman for a student government office before a voluntary assembly.  The speech contained these sentences: "I know a man who is firm – he's firm in his pants, he's firm in his shirt, his character is firm – but most...of all, his belief in you, the students of Bethel, is firm.  Jess is a man who will go to the very end – even the climax, for each and every one of you."   The next day a school official informed him that he had violated a school rule against "the use of obscene, profane language or gestures" and he was given a three-day suspension.  

He sued in federal court, arguing that the suspension violated his First Amendment rights.  Both the federal and US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit agreed with him, stating that his speech did not cause the "substantial disruption" which was part of the "Tinker standard" for protected student speech.  But the US Supreme Court sided with the school district.  "The undoubted freedom to advocate unpopular and controversial views in schools and classrooms must be balanced against the society's countervailing interest in teaching students the boundaries of socially appropriate behavior," Chief Justice Burger wrote.  "The First Amendment does not prevent the school officials from determining that to permit a vulgar and lewd speech...would undermine the school's basic educational mission.  A high school assembly or classroom is no place for a sexually explicit monologue directed towards an unsuspecting audience of teenage students."  Schools therefore could punish students for "lewd, indecent, or offensive" speech.   

1. Listen to the oral argument: http://www.oyez.org/cases/1980-1989/1985/1985_84_1667
2. Read the decision: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=478&invol=675
   
3. Read what Matthew Fraser says about the case 15 years later: http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=13701

Religion in Schools

A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in 2009 that the Everett School District did not violate a student rights after a school wind ensemble was barred from playing "Ave Maria" by Franz Biebl at a junior high school graduation ceremony.  The majority held that the decision of the school district to limit music performances at graduation to pieces that were "entirely secular" did not violate free expression rights and were in keeping with the Constitution's Establishment Clause.

(The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has jurisdiction in Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and Oregon as well as Washington, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.)

Free Expression on the Internet
Reaffirming that "students do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate," a county Superior Court judge ruled in 2000 that public school officials at Timberline High School in Lacey, Washington cannot punish a student for creating on his home computer an Internet parody that lampooned the school's assistant principal.  The student, Karl Beidler, had included a disclaimer saying the posting was a parody.  He was suspended for the duration of the school year for "exceptional misconduct."  Beidler received $10,000 in damages from the school district. 

Free Expression on the Internet
In 1995, when home websites were still something of a novelty, Paul Kim, a high school senior and honor student, spoofed his school on the "Newport High School Unofficial Home Page" which he created on his home computer.  After seeing the site, the school principal withdrew the school's recommendations from the colleges to which Kim had applied and from the National Merit Scholarship office.  After the ACLU intervened, the school agreed to an out-of-court settlement which included an apology, $2,000 in damages and the reinstatement of his letters of recommendation. 

Free Expression on the Internet

A US District Court judge has upheld the 40-day suspension of a Kentridge High School student for his involvement in making a video that mocked an English teacher.  The film was posted on You Tube and MySpace.  The student, who does not appear in the film but allegedly helped edit it, had hoped to get the suspension overturned so he could attend his graduation ceremony on June 16, 2007.  The judge said that while students did have a First Amendment right to criticize teachers, the film was "lewd and offensive and devoid of political or critical comment."

Zero Tolerance – Free Expression
In January 2002 the full US Court of Appeals for Ninth Circuit refused to reconsider the case of James LaVine, who, as a junior at Blaine High School submitted a poem to his English teacher about a boy who shoots 28 students in school.  LaVine was expelled, but readmitted after being examined by a psychiatrist and given a clean bill of health.  But the military had already cancelled his enlistment contract as a result of the expulsion.  His parents sued the school district, arguing that his free speech rights had been violated, and a federal district court judge in Seattle agreed, ruling that the poem was not a true threat of violence.  But then three judges on the Ninth Circuit Court heard the appeal and decided unanimously on behalf of the school district. 

LaVine's parents asked the full court to reconsider, but both it and the US Supreme Court declined to do so.  One of the judges who wanted the court to reconsider, Circuit Court Judge Andrew Kleinfeld, wrote in dissent, "After today, members of the black trench-coat clique in high schools in the western United States will have to hide their artwork.  School officials may now subordinate students' freedom of expression to a policy of making high schools cozy places, like day-care centers, where no one may be made uncomfortable by the knowledge that others have dark thoughts, and all the art is of hearts and smiley faces" (Education Week, February 13, 2002).

Searches
In 2006 Nine Mile Falls school district agreed to stop using dogs for random drug searches in the middle and high school after students and parents threatened to bring a lawsuit.  In January 2004 the school district had reached an agreement with Interquest Detection Canines to search the schools at least four times a year.  The dogs searched for illegal, prescription and over-the-counter drugs as well as alcohol and tobacco.  The superintendent of the district has said he would reinstate the searches if they are ruled constitutional by a state or federal court.

Drug Testing
In September 2005, parents, students, and a retired teacher and football coach filed a lawsuit challenging a plan for suspicionless drug testing of students at Cle Elum-Roslyn High School. The plan would require students who want to participate in any extra curricular activity to consent in writing to be randomly drug tested before the activity began.  The school district rejected a plan by athletic coaches to only drug test students where there was reasonable suspicion that they were abusing illegal drugs or alcohol. Because the US Supreme Court has upheld random suspicionless drug testing for competitive extra curricular activities, the lawsuit is being brought in state court as a violation of the "privacy clause" of the state constitution. 

Drug Testing
In 2008, the Washington Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that Wahkiakum School District’s program of suspicionless drug tests for high school athletes violated the "privacy clause" of the state Constitution. The ruling is in opposition to the Vernonia andEarls US Supreme Court decisions that permit the random drug testing of student athletes and of students who want to participate in other extra curricular activities, based on the US Constitution.

Drug Testing
In 2005 the ACLU also challenged the drug-testing policy of Cle Elum-Roslyn School District which required any student participating in co-curricular activity to consent in writing to suspicionless drug testing. Parents must also consent. The lawsuit argues that the policy violates the "privacy clause" of the Washington Constitution and that students should not have to undergo drug testing without reasonable suspicion that they have been taking drugs. 

Discipline 
In 2005 the federal district court threw out a $47 million lawsuit brought by the NAACP on behalf of 17 Black students in the Kent school district. The suit alleges they were the victims of "excessive force" used by school security officers. The security guards had put students as young as 11 years old in handcuffs. They were also were accused of pulling students' hair, dousing them with pepper spray, slamming them against lockers and throwing them to the floor. 

WEST VIRGINIA

Flag Salute in Schools (US Supreme Court) - Barnette v. West Virginia Board of Education (1943)
In 1943, the US Supreme Court overturned the ruling it had made three years previously in another flag salute case involving Jehovah's Witness students, Minersville v. Gobitis.  By a vote of 6-3 the court in Barnette v. W.Va. Board of Education came down on the side of students who had been expelled from school for refusing to salute the flag. 

The students had brought a challenge to a compulsory flag salute required by the West Virginia Board of Education, which stated that failure to conform was "insubordination" which should be dealt with by expulsion.  Not only were expelled children to be regarded as "unlawfully absent" and hence potential delinquents.  Their parents were liable to prosecution, fines and jail terms.      

While the students' case had been presented as a matter of religious liberty, the majority Supreme Court opinion written by Justice Robert Jackson in the Barnette case was a ringing endorsement of the right to freedom of thought and expression, even in the middle of a war.  The decision states that "the very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts."  In other words, it was not up to legislatures or popular opinion to decide whether or not to uphold fundamental rights.  The opinion examines whether "compulsion" is a permissible means to achieve "uniformity of sentiment" and "national unity" and points out where that may lead: "Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters.  Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard....We set up government by consent of the governed, and the Bill of Rights denies those in power any legal opportunity to coerce that consent." 

With these stirring words the decision enshrines the right to dissent:  "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein...We think the action of local authorities in compelling the flag salute and pledge transcends the constitutional limitations on their power and invades the sphere of intellect and spirit which it is the purpose of the First Amendment to our Constitution to reserve from all official control..." 

This ruling for the first time recognizes that the Bill of Rights applies to students in public schools.  Students cannot be forced to participate in the Pledge of Allegiance, and cannot be punished for refusing to salute the flag.

Read the decision: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=319&invol=624

Freedom of Expression
In late 2001, Katie Sierra of Sissonville High School was suspended for doing two things her school didn't like: she distributed leaflets inviting students to join a pro-anarchy anti-war club, and she wore an anti-war T-shirt to school.  A West Virginia state court upheld her suspension.  However, a jury later ruled that she had a First Amendment right to start the club.  But the jury also upheld her suspension on grounds that the anti-war messages on her T-shirt disrupted the running of the school in the post-September 11^th climate.

Freedom of Expression
A federal court ruled in 2005 that Hurricane High School officials violated a student's First Amendment rights when they prevented him from wearing a T-shirt featuring the Confederate flag.  The judge said that if at any future date there was evidence that the T-shirt was being used "as a tool for disruption, intimidation, or trampling upon the rights of others," then a ban might be appropriate. 

Freedom of Expression

In 2009, “AB,” a student at Huntington High School was suspended for 10 days after he refused to remove a message written on his hand that stated, “Free A-Train.” “A-Train” referred to “AJ,” a student charged with shooting a police officer. A federal district court agreed with school officials that because of gang problems at the high school, the slogan threatened to undermine the confidence of students and parents that school administrators could keep the school safe.

Freedom of Expression
In Hosty v. Carter the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in 2005 held that "Hazelwood's framework applies to subsidized student newspapers at colleges as well as elementary and secondary schools," unless the student publication is a "public forum." The case arose from efforts of the dean at Governors State University to exercise prior review when the student newspaper criticized the administration.  The district court had ruled that the Hazelwood decision did not apply to post-secondary schools, a position that has also been taken by the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit Court.  The Tenth and Eleventh Circuits have, like the Seventh Circuit, ruled that it does apply to colleges and universities. 

(The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has jurisdiction over Indiana and Illinois as well as Wisconsin.  Tenth Circuit rulings apply to Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas and Oklahoma; Eleventh Circuit rulings apply to Florida, Georgia and Alabama; First Circuit rulings apply to Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island and Puerto Rico). 

Searches

The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled in 2008 that a child welfare worker who conducted an examination of the bodies of two children in a private school without parental consent had violated their Fourth Amendment rights. The social worker was searching for marks indicating that they had been beaten by their stepfather, but did not find any. The court ruled that children have a reasonable expectation of privacy in a private school.

First Amendment - Same-Sex Couples
In 2003, the ACLU stepped in to help same-sex couples at a Homecoming dance in Big Piney, Wyoming. There, two girls - both heterosexual - listed each other as dates in hopes of clearing the way for lesbian and gay couples to feel comfortable coming to dances together. Instead, the two young women were met at the doors by police officers and were not permitted to enter the dance. Shortly after receiving a letter from the ACLU of Wyoming, the school district amended its policy and announced that students can safely bring same-sex dates to all future dances. The ACLU's letter cited a Rhode Island case, Fricke v. Lynch, which states that students not only have a First Amendment right to bring same-sex dates, but that schools must take steps to ensure their safety when they do so.