Tinker v Des Moines Independent Community School District

Tinker v Des Moines Independent Community School District is a 1969 decision of the United States Supreme Court that established the free speech rights of public school students. Several students, including Mary Beth Tinker, were suspended from their Iowa public schools for wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War, and their families sued arguing this violated their right to free expression. The Court held that students do not shed their constitutional right to freedom of speech at the schoolhouse gate, and that school officials may restrict student expression only when they can reasonably forecast that it will substantially and materially disrupt the operation of the school, not merely because they wish to avoid the discomfort of an unpopular viewpoint. The decision remains the leading standard for evaluating restrictions on student speech in American public schools.