Mary Beth Tinker 9/25

Yesterday I went to hear Mary Beth Tinker speak at Newhouse. For those that don’t know, Tinker was the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines. The case dealt with free speech in public schools. During the Vietnam War, Tinker and a few other students wore black armbands to school in protest. In response, the school suspended them, which led to a challenge by the ACLU that ended up all the way in the United States Supreme Court. The Court ruled that the school had overstepped its boundaries in limiting the students’ speech, saying “students do not shed their constitutional rights to free expression at the schoolhouse gates.”
At this event, Tinker explained the background of her protest, as well as what she has been doing since then. As a child, her parents were both civil rights activists, so she was raised in an environment that encouraged speaking up. This led to her thinking that the armbands were “no big deal,” that it was a way of life that her family did. Since the court battle, she has been working as a nurse outside of Washington, D.C., but she kept on thinking about free speech issues in schools. In particular, she is passionate about the ability that youth have to speak out on issues and create real change.
I really enjoyed this event. First of all, it was pretty unreal to talk to the person who struck the single greatest blow for free speech in schools in American history. It was also interesting to get her perspective on other cases. She was pretty critical of Hazelwood v Kuhlmeier, which was a Supreme Court case that dealt with freedom of the press in schools. In that case, the Court ruled against the students, saying that the school was within their rights to censor the school paper. Tinker views this as a backward slide, in her opinion, schools should only limit speech if it is clearly disruptive or provokes unrest. One of the most surprising things I learned at the event came after the talk when I spoke to her. I thanked her for what she did, saying that I had participated in a Day of Silence (LGBT bullying awareness day) in middle school, which wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for her case. She responded by saying that that was an issue that was very important to her, as she herself was gay. We then talked about the need to balance conflicting views, and the difficulty of setting the line between voicing an opinion and hate speech. Overall, this was an incredibly informative, engaging experience that made me think a great deal about freedom of speech and the importance of speaking out, and I hope to hear her speak again someday.