Students Rights -- An Overview
Although people often think of the law as “set in stone,” rights change over time.
Student rights, like those of all citizens, expand and contract as the courts interpret and reinterpret the Constitution. The 1960s and 1970s saw a burgeoning of interest in the rights of students and young people generally. However, in more recent years, school officials, judges, and legislators have increasingly questioned to what degree rights should be extended to young people, some arguing that students learn better if they are told what to wear, and allowed less personal freedom. Schools in some parts of the country have installed metal detectors, surveillance cameras, and locks with buzzers; erected fences, and hired security personnel. Many schools have even introduced new restrictions on hair, dress, speech, and expression in print and on the Internet. Following a 1999 school shooting in Columbine, Colo., “zero tolerance” was increasingly applied to student expression seen as threatening. Students have been suspended, expelled, and even arrested for jokes, doodles, remarks taken out of context or made on home Web sites or social networking sites, or for wearing blue hair and black clothing.
Of course, schools must be safe and students should be able to feel safe in school. But schools must also be places where students can express themselves without fear of punishment and where they believe their ideas truly matter. Students should not simply learn about their civil liberties in social studies class -- students should also learn to exercise their rights, both in and out of school.
Despite new restrictions, students do have rights.
Forty years ago the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “School officials do not possess absolute authority over their students. Students in school as well as out of school are ‘persons’ under our Constitution. They are possessed of fundamental rights, which the State must respect . . .” (Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503, 511 (1969). If students think their rights have not been respected, there is something they can do about it. However, students must know what their rights are before they can act to protect them.
Students Rights Handbook index:
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