Freedom of Speech

Freedom of speech among students in America is too restrictive. Americans are protected by the Constitution and it is not American to limit any freedom given by it. Students attend school to prepare to live in the real world. In school they are taught to be separate individuals. By restricting their ability to act as such, schools actually discourage individualism and free thinking. Schools ask children to turn their shirt inside out if it is “inappropriate”. For example, a student is wearing a shirt with their baseball team on it. The shirt contains the sponsors of the team and they include a beer company. There is a small patch on the back of the shirt with the company’s name. A school official sees the patch and asks the student to change his shirt. If school is preparing students to live in the real world then they should be able to dress like people in the real world.

Messages that are seen as going against the schools messages are also not allowed. For example, a student wears a shirt that says “Legalize Marijuana” and school officials ask the student to change his shirt and maybe even suspend the student because their shirt goes against the anti-drug message of the school. This is not constitutional because the student is displaying his opinion on a topic currently being debated in a peaceful way. Schools are upset because they engrave the idea that drugs are bad into students’ minds and anything that contradicts that is not allowed.

Schools limit the right to free speech to help further their goals and not for the better of the students. In the Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines (1989), students were going to wear black armbands to school to protest the war. The school found out their plan and outlawed armbands in school. I believe that their protest upset the school officials and they made a rule against it. The students wore their armbands anyways and were suspended. In court it was found that the school had no right to limit the students’ speech.

Restricting free speech seems to cause more trouble than having students held to the same standards as everyone else.

Peace,

Syotos