Students Rights -- Where They Come From
The rights of everyone in this nation come from the Constitution of the United States, including its 27 amendments. (The first 10 amendments are called the Bill of Rights). Whereas the main body of the Constitution gives authority to government to act, the Bill of Rights and several other amendments set limits on what the government may do. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and so all government officials are bound by it -- including public school teachers and personnel.
Other laws and regulations (including school rules) may add to the rights guaranteed by the Constitution, but may never reduce those rights. The same applies to state constitutions: state constitutions may provide greater protection of civil liberties than the U.S. Constitution, but they may never provide less protection. For example, our state outlawed slavery through the Vermont Constitution in 1777, but the U.S. Constitution was not amended to ban slavery in all states until 1865.
Government laws or regulations that violate or diminish the rights guaranteed by the Constitution can be challenged in court by those directly affected. When such cases go to court (many are resolved beforehand, through discussions and negotiations), judges decide whether constitutional rights have been violated. The U.S. Supreme Court is the highest court in the country, but very few cases actually reach the Supreme Court. The decisions that the Supreme Court justices write become the basis for interpreting the bounds of our rights. All other federal courts and all state courts are required to follow Supreme Court rulings.
When a new law is passed or a new school policy is adopted, the assumption is that the rule is just and constitutional -- the rule is “innocent unless proven guilty,” in other words. But if a rule is enforced and a person affected thinks the rule is unconstitutional -- that it violates his or her constitutional rights -- the person may challenge the rule.
For example, in July 2003, a U.S. District Court struck down a Pennsylvania law requiring public and private school students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance or sing the national anthem each morning (Circle School v. Phillips, 270 F. Supp.2d 616 [E.D. Pa. 2003]). In the ruling, Judge Robert F. Kelly said that the law “unconstitutionally interferes with the School Plaintiffs’ ability to express their values and forces them to espouse the Commonwealth’s views.” If those plaintiffs had not decided to stand up for their rights, the Pennsylvania law would still be considered valid, even though it has been determined to be unconstitutional.
Many groups have demanded and won their rights by court challenges to rules they believed to be unconstitutional. Students should know that students who came before them stood up for their rights and won, and now today’s students can stand up, too. They can follow the example of their peers whose courageous actions, described in detail in the final section of this guide, achieved most of the rights that students have today.
The next section contains the answers to some frequently asked questions about student rights in public schools.
Students Rights Handbook index:
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