The Supreme Court applies the First Amendment in many cases regarding free speech. Through these various cases, the Supreme Court has established four legal principles to guide student expression rights in public educational facilities (McCarthy et al., 2014, p. 95). The first decision on student expression rights heard by the Supreme Court was in 1969, in the Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District. The Tinker (1969) case determined that students could not be suspended for quietly petitioning the Vietnam War by wearing black armbands to school. Through this case, the Tinker Standard was established which states a student “may express opinions on controversial issues in the classroom…so long as the exercise of such rights does not “materially and substantially interfere with the requirements of appropriate …show more content…
Since it is a political year with immense variation of political views and students on opposing sides of the political spectrum, the school can anticipate the likelihood that the presence of the “Hill Yeah” t-shirt could substantially disrupt the educational process and collide with the rights of others. As stated within Hazelwood (1988), “limitations on speech…unconstitutional outside the schoolhouse are not necessarily unconstitutional within.” Schools must protect the educational rights of students and limit behaviors that can substantially impede the learning