Activist and student advocate Mary Beth Tinker visited students at Sachem High School North and Sachem High School East on Tuesday.
Tinker was a participant in the landmark Supreme Court case Tinker v Des Moines in 1965.
Thanks to the leadership and organization of Sachem North social studies teachers Katie Daquino and Dr. Afxendiou the event was possible. Sachem students received a first-hand account of Tinker’s role nearly a half century ago as a 13 year old student in Des Moines, Iowa, as part of a group of students wearing black armbands in school to mourn those lost in the Vietnam War and support an end to the conflict.
When she was asked to remove her arm band by school officials, Tinker complied, but along with others, was later suspended for violating a new school policy against wearing armbands as the school district feared a disruption of classes.
After the suspensions, the families of Mary Beth and John Tinker, and their friend Christopher Eckhardt, filed suit in a U.S. District Court with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawyer, Dan Johnston. Both the U.S. District Court and later the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Des Moines, Iowa school board, upholding the suspensions, forcing both families to appeal their case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
After accepting the case, on Feb. 24, 1969 the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the lower court rulings with a 7-2 decision stating that students do not, “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”
Moreover the High Court stated the First Amendment right to free speech could be symbolic speech such as an armband and that public schools, and school officials could not censor student speech unless it disrupted the educational process. Because wearing a black armband was not disruptive, the Court held that the First Amendment protected the right of students to wear one.
Tinker, through her life actions and the presentation, encouraged Sachem students to stand up for democracy by putting the values learned in our homes and in our community to action by standing up for the principles of equality, civil rights and the protection of our civil liberties, guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution for all Americans including school children.
