Tinker v. Des Moines 393 US 503 (1969) is an important U. S. Supreme Court case that prompted one of the court's more controversial decisions of the 1960s regarding freedom of speech.

The case originated in the decision in December of 1965 by Des Moines, Iowa residents John and Mary Beth Tinker, and their friend Christopher Eckhardt, to wear black armbands to their schools (high school for John and Christopher, junior high for Mary Beth) in protest of the Vietnam War. The school board apparently heard rumor of this decision and chose to pass a policy banning the wearing of armbands to school: the Tinkers and Eckhardt chose to violate this policy, and were suspended from school. Their parents, in turn, filed suit in U.S. District Court, which upheld the decision of the Des Moines school board. A tie vote in the U.S. Court of Appeals meant that the school board's decision continued to stand, and forced the Tinkers and Eckhardts to appeal to the Supreme Court directly, and the case was argued before the court on 12 November 1968.

The court's decision was handed down on 24 February 1969. It held that neither students nor teachers lost their right to free speech while in school, and that administrators would have to demonstrate constitutionally valid reasons for any specific regulation of speech in the classroom. Justice Abe Fortas wrote the majority opinion, which continues to be used in defense of free speech for students in the United States to this day. Justices Hugo Black and John Marshall Harlan II were the only two dissenting votes. Justice Black's dissent is especially unusual, as he had in prior cases been the most outspoken champion of First Amendment rights in the Supreme Court.

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