
Your school district adopts a measure requiring
that all public school students salute the flag and
recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Students who do
not participate could be expelled; their parents
could even lose custody of them. A group of
Jehovah's Witnesses challenge the law on First
Amendment grounds. They argue that the forced
flag salute conflicted with their religious beliefs
against idol worship and graven images, and
therefore violates their free exercise of religion and
freedom of speech rights under the First
Amendment.

West Virginia State Board of Education v.
Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943)

“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional
constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can
prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics,
nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or
force citizens to confess by word or act their faith
therein.” (Justice Robert Jackson)

Several students plan to wear black armbands
to school to protest U.S. involvement in Iraq
and mourn the dead on all sides. School
officials learn of the impending protest and
quickly adopt a no-armband rule (even though
they allowed students to wear other symbols).
The students nonetheless wear the armbands to
school. School officials suspend them for
violating school policy. The students sued,
claiming violation of their First Amendment
rights.

Tinker v. Des Moines
School Dist., 393 U.S.
503 (1969)
 "It can hardly be
argued that either
students or teachers
shed their
constitutional rights
to freedom of speech
or expression at the
schoolhouse gate."
(Justice Abe Fortas)

Students do not lose their
constitutional rights at the
schoolhouse door. School officials’
duties to provide a safe learning
environment must be balanced
against students’ free-expression
rights. School officials may not
censor student speech because of an
"undifferentiated fear or
apprehension." They must
reasonably forecast that the student
speech will cause a substantial
disruption or invade the rights of
others. In this case, "the record does
not demonstrate any facts which
reasonably may have led school
authorities to forecast substantial
disruption of or material
interference with school activities,
and no disturbances or disorders on
the school premises in fact

A beloved the public high school student
delivers a nominating speech on behalf of
another student at a student assembly. The
speech contains elaborate and immature sexual
innuendo. The school suspends the student for
violating the school’s no-disruption rule, which
prohibited “obscene, profane language.” The
student contends that the suspension violated
his First Amendment rights because his speech
caused no disruption of school activities within
the meaning of Tinker.

Bethel School Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U.S.
675 (1986)

“The undoubted freedom to advocate unpopular
and controversial views in schools and classrooms
must be balanced against the society's countervailing
interest in teaching students the boundaries of
socially appropriate behavior. Even the most heated
political discourse in a democratic society requires
consideration for the personal sensibilities of the
other participants and audiences.” (Chief Justice
Warren Burger)

Members of your school board and PTA
determine that certain books, such as the Harry
Potter series by JK Rowling and the His Dark
Materials series by Phillip Pullman, be removed
because they are inappropriate for children in
your school. Several students and parents
challenge the decision to remove these books
from the library.

Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free
School District No. 26 v. Pico, 457 U.S. 853
(1982)


"[T]he special characteristics of the school library
make that environment especially appropriate for
the recognition of the First Amendment rights of
students." (Justice William Brennan)
"Local school boards may not remove books from
school library shelves simply because they dislike
the ideas contained in those books and seek by their
removal to 'prescribe what shall be orthodox in
politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of
public opinion'"

Angry over the fact that your school is devoting
more resources to an elementary athletics program
than to a needed reading course, you write a letter
to the editor of a community newspaper,
criticizing the board of education’s allocation of
funds between academics and athletics. The school
board decides that your services are no longer
desired, saying that the letter contained false
statements that impugned the integrity of the
school system. You sue, claiming that the board
violated your First Amendment rights by
terminating you for exercising his right to freedom
of speech.


Pickering v. Board of Education , 391 U.S. 563
(1968)
"While criminal sanctions and damage awards
have a somewhat different impact on the
exercise of the right to freedom of speech from
dismissal from employment, it is apparent that
the threat of dismissal from public employment
is nonetheless a potent means of inhibiting
speech." (Justice Thurgood Marshall)

Your state’s "Balanced Treatment for CreationScience and Evolution-Science in Public School
Instruction" Act (Creationism Act) requires any
public elementary or secondary school that teaches
evolution also to teach "creation science." While the
Act did not require evolution or creation science to
be taught, it did stipulate that if either theory was
presented, the other must also be taught. A group
of parents, teachers, and religious leaders
challenge the statute as an impermissible
advancement of religion in violation of the
Establishment Clause. The state officials counter
that the legitimate secular purpose of the Act was
to protect academic freedom.

Edwards v. Aguillard (1987)

"We do not imply that a legislature could never
require that scientific critiques of prevailing scientific
theories be taught. . . [T]eaching a variety of
scientific theories about the origins of humankind to
schoolchildren might be validly done with the clear
secular intent of enhancing the effectiveness of
science instruction. But because the primary purpose
of the Creationism Act is to endorse a particular
religious doctrine, the Act furthers religion in
violation of the Establishment Clause." (Justice
William Brennan)

Your school district, within a very religious
and conservative community, bans the
teaching of any theory that gives children the
idea that man in any way ascended or
descended from a lower order of animals. You
decide that this violates your First Amendment
right to free speech, as well as the
Establishment Clause, and sue.

Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97 (1968)

“The overriding fact is that Arkansas’ law selects
from the body of knowledge a particular segment
which it proscribes for the sole reason that it is
deemed to conflict with a particular religious
doctrine; that is, with a particular interpretation of
the Book of Genesis by a particular religious group."
(Justice Abe Fortas)

As the principal of a charter elementary school,
you bear final editorial authority over the fifth
grade class newspaper.. This most recent
edition of the paper has two articles you object
to: one addresses the increasing number of
students in the connected middle school who
have drank alcohol, and the other is about the
impact of divorce on children. While well
written, you remove them from the paper. The
children sue, claiming a First Amendment
violation.


Hazelwood Sch. Dist.. v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S.
260 (1988)
"A school must also retain the authority to
refuse to sponsor student speech that might
reasonably be perceived to advocate drug or
alcohol use, irresponsible sex, or 'conduct
otherwise inconsistent with the shared values
of a civilized social order,' or to associate the
school with any position other than neutrality
on matters of political controversy." (Justice
Byron White)

The school lets students leave early to attend a
parade for the Olympic torch relay that is going
to pass by the school; the students gather
across the street, off school grounds, and one
student unrolls a giant banner with the
inscription ‘Bong Hits for Jesus.’ The principal
immediately seizes the banner suspends the
student for five days, increasing it to ten when
he quotes Thomas Jefferson. He sues, claiming
his free speech rights were violated.



Morse v Frederick (2007)
“First, the phrase could be interpreted as an
imperative: “[Take] bong hits …”—a message
equivalent, as Morse explained in her declaration, to
“smoke marijuana” or “use an illegal drug.”
Alternatively, the phrase could be viewed as
celebrating drug use—“bong hits [are a good thing],”
or “[we take] bong hits”. ” And even if that second
interpretation does not support the principle's
conclusions that the banner advocated the use of illegal
drugs,
“ we discern no meaningful distinction between
celebrating illegal drug use in the midst of fellow
students and outright advocacy or promotion.” (Chief
Justice John Roberts)

Your school, at its fifth grade graduation,
invites local clergy to give non-sectarian and
non-denominational prayers for invocations
and benedictions. A parent sues the school,
arguing that this violates the Establishment
Clause.

Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992)

"The principle that government may accommodate
the free exercise of religion does not supersede the
fundamental limitations imposed by the
Establishment Clause. It is beyond dispute that, at a
minimum, the Constitution guarantees that
government may not coerce anyone to support or
participate in religion or its exercise, or otherwise act
in a way which 'establishes a [state] religion or
religious faith, or tends to do so." (Justice Anthony
Kennedy)

Your local school board decides that students
complete an ‘act of reverence to God’ along
with the Pledge, and develop the following
non-denominational, non-sectarian prayer:
"Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence on
Thee. We beg Thy blessings upon us and our
parents and our teachers and our country. Amen."
The parents of ten students sue, claiming a
First Amendment violation.


Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962)
"[W]e think that the constitutional prohibition
against laws respecting an establishment of
religion must at least mean that in this country
it is no part of the business of government to
compose official prayers for any group of the
American people to recite as a part of a
religious program carried on by government."
(Justice Hugo Black)

Pennsylvania state law required that "at least
ten verses from the Holy Bible shall be read,
without comment, at the opening of each
public school on each school day." Two families
sued, claiming this violated the Establishment
Clause of the First Amendment.


Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963)
"In addition, it might well be said that one’s education is not
complete without a study of comparative religion or the
history of religion and its relationship to the advancement of
civilization. It certainly may be said that the Bible is worthy
of study for its literary and historic qualities. Nothing we
have said here indicates that such study of the Bible or of
religion, when presented objectively as part of a secular
program of education, may not be effected [sic] consistently
with the First Amendment. But the exercises here do not fall
into those categories. They are religious exercises, required
by the States in violation of the command of the First
Amendment that the Government maintain strict neutrality,
neither aiding nor opposing religion." (Justice Tom Clark)

Pennsylvania and Rhode Island statutes
provided state aid to church-related
elementary and secondary schools. A group of
individual taxpayers and religious liberty
organizations filed suit, challenging the
constitutionality of the program. They claimed
that, since the program primarily aided
parochial schools, it violated the Establishment
Clause.

Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971)


"First, the statute must have a secular legislative
purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must
be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion;
finally, the statute must not foster 'excessive
entanglement with religion.'" (Chief Justice Warren
Burger)
THE LEMON TEST!!!!

You teach in a low performing district in
Tampa. In order to try and improve student
achievement, the Hillsborough School District
begins a voucher program allowing students to
attend the public or private school of their
choice. The majority schools taking part in the
program are private religious schools. You are
part of a lawsuit arguing that this program
provides an unconstitutional aid to religion at
the expense of public schools.

Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 536 U.S. 639 (2002)

"We believe that the program challenged here is a
program of true private choice, consistent with
Mueller, Witters, and Zobrest, and thus constitutional.
As was true in those cases, the Ohio program is
neutral in all respects toward religion. It is part of a
general and multifaceted undertaking by the State of
Ohio to provide educational opportunities to the
children of a failed school district." (Chief Justice
William Rehnquist)

In 1981, the Alabama legislature modified a
1978 statute that had allowed a moment of
silence for the purpose of 'meditation." The
1981 amendment specified that the moment of
silence was for the purpose of "meditation or
prayer." The sponsor of the legislation went on
record as stating that the sole purpose of this
change was to bring prayer back into schools.
When the Jaffree family brought this case to
trial, the defense did nothing to rebut this
description of the legislative purpose behind
the revised statute.

Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38 (1985)

"The addition of 'or voluntary prayer' indicates that
the State intended to characterize prayer as a favored
practice. Such an endorsement is not consistent with
the established principle that the government must
pursue a course of complete neutrality toward
religion." (Justice John Paul Stevens)

Your local school board authorizes a program
of religious instruction in which outside
religious teachers, paid for by private third
parties, are allowed to enter schools once a
week to provide religious instruction. Those
students not wishing to participate in the
program are sent to another room to continue
with their class work. Attendance records are
kept, and those not attending either the classes
or the alternate classroom are considered
truant.

McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U.S. 203
(1948)

"To hold that a state cannot consistently with the
First and Fourteenth Amendments utilize its public
school system to aid any or all religious faiths or
sects in the dissemination of their doctrines and
ideals does not, as counsel urge, manifest a
governmental hostility to religion or religious
teachings." (Justice Hugo Black)

In Santa Fe, Texas, students were elected by
their classmates to give pre-game prayers at
high school football games over the public
address system. A number of students sued,
arguing that such solemnizing statements or
prayers constituted an endorsement of religion,
violating the Establishment Clause. The district
countered that the pre-game invocations were a
long-standing tradition in Texas communities.
Moreover, the prayer came from a student,
thus making it student speech and not statesponsored speech.

Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe,
530 U.S. 290 (2000)

"The delivery of such a message -- over the school's
public address system, by a speaker representing the
student body, under the supervision of school
faculty, and pursuant to a school policy that
explicitly and implicitly encourages public prayer -is not properly characterized as 'private' speech."
(Justice John Paul Stevens)