Introducing
Your new presentation assistant.
Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.
Trending searches
The First Amendment might permit the use of an offensive form of expression by an adult making a political point, but the same nature of expression is not permitted to children in a public school. The First Amendment does not prohibit schools from prohibiting vulgar and lewd speech since his content did not fit in with the "fundamental values of public school education."
The Court in Tinker v. Des Moines said that students do not shed their constitutional rights at school. In the Bethel case the Court upheld the school district. The Court said that school officials acted correctly within the Constitution by disciplining Fraser. The court found that it was appropriate for the school to prohibit the use of vulgar and offensive language.
His parents appealed the school's disciplinary action. The Washington Supreme Court agreed that his free speech rights had been violated. The school board then appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Does the First Amendment prevent a school district from disciplining a high school student for giving a lewd speech at a high school assembly?
Spoke at a school assembly to nominate a classmate for office in student government. His speech was filled with sexual references and innuendos, but it contained no obscenities. Fraser's candidate was overwhelmingly elected. However Fraser was suspended from school for three days and removed from the list of students who were eligible to make graduation remarks.
Mathew Fraser, a senior at Bethel High School in Bethel, Washington who was ranked second in his graduating class.