Its seen in the hallways everyday, but the typical student does not see it. People to take seem to take it for granted without even realizing it. Americans are afforded the right to free speech, say what they wish to say, and go to sleep at night knowing that the law protects them from any legal retaliation. But as American high school students, the First Amendment’s protection may seem to dwindle the second they walk into their school.
For decades students have seen their first amendment rights in school called into question. 1969, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Tinker vs. Des Moines that students have the right to free speech both inside and outside of school. In the Tinker case, students wore black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam War but were forced to remove them when school administration told them to. The case established that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” However, today the boundaries of the schoolhouse gate has expanded beyond the property of the school.
What has caused this explosion of regulatory oversight by school administrators? Something that was not an issue at the time of the Tinker ruling: the internet. Decades ago the only way the common student could spread their opinion was by word of mouth or by in-house landline phones. Today with social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, anybody can say anything from anywhere and reach hundreds or thousands of followers. As a result, school administrators began to pay attention.
In order to cease any controversy and bad press for the school, administrators are able to punish and call into question comments made by students online, hours after the last bell rung. Even student publications such as high school newspapers and magazines are often regulated by high school officials to affirm that a positive image of the school is forecasted to the surrounding community. This all begs the question: does free speech exist in American schools?
According to the Supreme Court’s website, some examples of free speech includes the freedom not the speak, peaceful protest, engagement in symbolic speech, and the right to use offensive words or phrases to promote a political message. Many of the decisions made by the Supreme Court defining what free speech is not has to do with actions during school which includes students making an obscure speech at school-sponsored events, students advocating illegal drug use at a school-sponsored event, and the printing of articles in school newspapers over the objection of school administration. With many verdicts going against the free speech of students, the rights students have under the Tinker decision seems to be dwindling to the point where it is just expected for school administration to have the fight to censure what students can and can not say.
Free speech is not the right to agree with the governing authority, it is the right to speak and demonstrate in accordance to one’s own conscience. When one must censor their thoughts and beliefs for fear of retaliation, intellect is restricted, and it becomes a one-sided debate where the public speech of students is restricted to the will and mercy of the school. It seems almost ironic that schools, institutions founded to help people notice and fix the problems in society, would shield themselves from the same scrutiny and logic that they taught people to think with. The internet has driven schools and places of employment to become more paranoid about the speech of the people they believe to represent them.
Should schools truly be advising students over the internet and punishing them for things said and posted online on social media websites? This continue to remains the question and will continue to remain in debate for years to come. Technology will only continue to improve, and with the recent addition to the massive amounts of Chromebooks distributed throughout the school, additional technology will continue to slide its way through the doors of Middletown High School North in the coming years. This question will only grow and develop as this technological trend continue.
Given the recent events that took place at the Charlie Hebdo’s magazine headquarters in Paris, France, it causes the value of free speech to be taken more seriously. In American schools, students are silenced at the will of schools, but in other places, journalist are willing to, and have, died for their right to speak freely. A person can not live their life in a muzzle, it is by nature that people have their own opinions and thoughts, and although we live in a world where free speech has become more and more into question, it is important to continue to speak in accordance to conscience. Without that, we, even as teenagers in a high school, becomes nothing more but a mindless flock of sheep being led by a shepherd in a field.