Do you feel that the majority opinion in your Supreme Court court case was correctly decided? Explain your answer referring to the constitution, using evidence from the case documents and examples from your personal experiences as a student.
Due Friday Morning
35 comments:
Hayley Bryden
Period 4
According to the case of Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier students in school do not have the same first amendment rights as people in the "real" world. This was brought to attention when the administration chose to take out certain articles from the school newspaper that they deemed inappropriate without notifying the students. In my opinion it makes sense to place restrictions on what can be said in school because it should be a safe and secure environment for all that attend it. I agree with what the court decided, but in that situation the students should have been notified that their articles were inappropriate and would be taken out before the paper went to print. I agree with the court's decision because placing restrictions on what can be said will decrease tension between students with opposing beliefs.
Elyssa Eisenberg
p. 6
I feel that the majority opinion in my Supreme Court case was correctly decided in my case. The defendant had performed a speech containing lewd and graphic sexual innuendo to hundreds of students at his school. He was suspended for this speech, and the district court determined that his first amendment rights were violated and awarded him with $258 in damages and $12,750 in litigation and attorney fees. This decision was upheld by the court of appeals. The Supreme Court, however, reversed the decision. I think that in a school setting, the administration has the ability to sensor our speech because school is supposed to be a healthy, safe environment, not one wrought with sexual innuendo and swearing. Although our first amendment right of free speech should absolutely be upheld in general, when in school it is a different story.
Samantha Ragusa
Period 4
I agree with the majority ruling in my case. Matthew Frazier, the defendant, made a speech that contained sexual innuendoes and was very inappropriate. This speech was made to his peers and young teens in a school environment. This speech may have been damaging to these students. His school suspended him because it was against school policies to make this speech. District Courts ruled that his First Amendment rights had been violated and he was awarded damages. the Court of Appeals upheld this decision. The Supreme Court however, reversed this decision. I agree with this. When students are at school there is a certain level of etiquette and class that should be upheld. We should not be swearing and making sexual innuendos. It can be disruptive and distracting from school and learning. If we must speak freely in that way it should be done outside of the classroom.
i Do not you feel that the majority opinion in my Supreme Court court case was correctly decided? in 403 ET AL. v. FRASER the court kicked a boy off of a graduation speech list due to a speech he gave be for. it happened to have vulgar terms in it and they got mad. i think it was wrong.
The fourth amendment guards against "unreasonable searches and seizures, along with requiring any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause." In my opinion the principal in this case had probable cause for searching T.L.O's bag. In the T.L.O. vs. New Jersey case, the majority ruled that the principal's search of T.L.O.'s purse did not violate the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments because the principle had a reasonable suspicion that T.L.O was carrying drugs - "the presence of rolling papers in the purse." I personally agree with the majority ruling of the T.L.O vs. New Jersey case because I believe that the principal had a 'reasonable' cause for searching T.L.O's purse. Originally, the principal suspected that T.L.O's purse contained cigarettes; however, a further search was conducted in which marijuana and other drug paraphernalia was found. The principal's actions do not violate the constitution. In my school, all students sign a student handbook in the beginning of the year showing that they will abide all school rules. Because the principal had 'reasonable suspicion' that T.L.O . was breaking the school rules,the school has the right to search through her bags. In addition, this incident occurred on school grounds. Thus, T.L.O.'s rights are given up.
I don't agree with the fact that the majority rule in the case of Vernonia School District 47J vs. Acton was correctly decided. the reason I feel this way is because the Fourth Amendment was clearly violated: Acton, on school grounds, was required to take a drug test to inform the school's athletic program that he was free of any drug in his body. To deem this as a search and seizure and not take the test would make directors at the school feel that he was guilty of something (particularly drug usage). the collection of urine is nothing different than collecting bathroom urine, so he must have been guilty of something if he could not simply give up urine for testing. As a student, I have been aware of some students at a former high school that were guilty of using the same concept but in a different situation. For example, students would not turn in assignments and claim they didn't know when it was due to cover the fact that they didn't and deliberately didn't do the assignment.
Dolores Diorio
Per.6
In the case of Fraser v. Bethel, I think the Supreme Court was definitely right. Matthew Fraser, a student, made a speech nominating a classmate for vice president. He made the speech in front of pretty much everyone in school. The speech was filled with sexual innuendos and wasn't very appropriate for a school setting. He was suspended because of this and decided that his 1st amendment rights were violated. At first, the District Court ruled in favor of Matthew Fraser and agreed that his 1st amendment rights were violated. The school then challenged this and went to Appeals court, which upheld the decision of the district court. When the case reached the Supreme Court, they agreed that his 1st amendment rights were not violated and that the school had every right to punish him-maybe not so harshly, but still, punish him. Fraser had 3 teachers read the speech and they all said that he could get in trouble and that the speech wasn't school appropriate. I think the Supreme Court was definitely right in making its decision because the speech was not appropriate for school and it was against school policy. If Fraser made this speech outside of school or something and he got in trouble for it, then his first amendment rights would have been violated. But, since it was against his schools rules to make a speech like that, his 1st amendment rights were not violated. His speech was against school rules and it wasn't at all appropriate for school. Overall, I think the supreme court was definitely right.
In the case Acton v Veronia School District, Acton was an athlete who was denied access to a High school Football team because he refused to the districts’ Student Athlete Drug Policy. This policy was designed to eliminate the drug culture that was centered around athletes. They had to do an urinanalysis in order to participate, this Acton he refused. He argued that his 4th and 14th amendments were violated. The majority ruling in this case sided with the school system. I strongly agree with this because his 4th and 14th amendment rights were not violated. This is a reasonable search because the school system was attempting to protect the children from getting involved in drugs, and it was clear that the athletes of the school were the center of the drugs. Then this also does not violate his privacy because the ruin is taken the exact same way as urinating in a restroom. The urine is only being tested for standard drugs and the information is not being shared with anyone. And furthermore students especially athletes are already required to have vaccinations and physical examinations requirements due to the communal undress involved. Drug use has been growing increasingly the last few years, it is important to try to discourage that, and this school policy follows these amendments and does that. This is an important issue to me as I have known several people that have done terrible things while high and believe that this is a dangerous issue that needs to be dealt with. So I think that this policy and the Courts ruling in favor of it is good.
The Supreme Court case of Goss v. Lopez, decided in 1975, resulted in a victory for student rights. According to the 5-4 majority ruling, students facing suspension from school have the right to due process, which is specified in the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. In my opinion, the Supreme Court made the correct decision and the outcome of the case was both fair and reasonable. The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees citizens of the United States the right to due process when the fundamental rights to liberty, life, or property are violated. The court ruling made the key distinction that a student's right to an education can be classified as property, and therefore suspending a student without notification or the chance of appeal was an attempt to take a citizen's property without due process; this is a direct violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. As a student, I know that I would want to be notified before being suspended, especially since a suspension is marked on a permanent record, which has the potential to affect college applications, and job applications. It seems as if the Supreme Court has acted with sympathy, recognizing the possible future implications of suspensions. Also, I believe that specializing the ruling to only apply to suspensions was the most appropriate decision. If students were able to argue for due process on matters such as being sent to the principal's office, the school environment would be one of red tape and procedure that prevented progress.
In New Jersey v. T.L.O, the Supreme Court said that the fourth amendment wasn't violated during the search and seizure of a students hand bag after finding the evidence needed. The majority said that searches by school administrators are constitutional without a warrant as long as the search is "reasonable". I feel that the school admimistrator that searched T.L.O's hand bag should have stopped after finding the cigarettes since that is the evidence to support the accusation. This is mainly because students do have a right in school do have a proper search and seizure to find only the evidence needed. Any extra search would go against our rights, the administrator had what he or she was looking for and thats it, there is no reason to keep searching someones bag. A locker, however, is different since that is school property but the hand bags are the students personal property, and by extending a search, our rights stated in the fourth amendment are violated unless there is a warrant to go with the search.
Mike Yavorek Period 4
The Supreme Court decision in Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier was that the school newspaper was not a public forum and that the students do not hold the same rights as adults. The students complained that the administration violated the First Amendment to freedom of speech and press. In the “real world” their rights would be violated, but in a controlled environment there is a limitation to the freedom of speech. The federal judges deemed that educators are entitled to exercise greater control over students’ expressions to assure that participants learn the curriculum. Also, that the readers and listeners are not exposed to material that may be inappropriate for their maturity level. I feel that some of the articles that were printed in the newspaper were not appropriate for the school setting. One of the articles has personal experiences of teen pregnancy which could be uncomfortable for some people. This was also a good decision by the Supreme Court because it will respect people’s beliefs about certain issues. The principal made the right decisions to omit the two pages from the newspaper. School is to learn and restrictions should be put in place to ensure a safe environment. The only problem I had was that the principal should have notified the students before he removed the aritcles.
I felt that the majority opinion in my Supreme Court case of Goss vs. Lopez was correctly decided. The students who were suspended from school without a hearing was unjustified. Since school suspension from school shows up on one’s record permanently, so when applying for jobs/college, the student becomes less of an attractive candidate than individuals with clean records. The permanent damage to the individual’s reputation cannot be amended. A more serious issue was that the school officials have violated the students’ constitutional rights of the Due Process (Fourteenth Amendment). The Justices of the Supreme Court couldn’t have been more correct as they cited the fact that the state’s law was in conflict with the supreme law of the land. I’m glad that the Justices have ruled in favor of the students.
Mike Coombs
Period 1
I agree with the Supreme Court's final verdict in the drug testing for athletes case. While school's shouldnt drug test students at the door every morning, but it's a different case for extracurricular activities such as sports. Students have the right to education, but not outside school activities. The school was merely taking measures on a problem that was most likely true. Popular students such as athletes have a more prodominant pattern in drug use.
I had Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier as my case which directly dealt with censorship in school. In the first amendment of the constitution we are given the right to free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press which basically prohibits censorship. However, if you were to yell bomb in an airport that would be a disturbance to the flow of the system, which is why i agree with the system. The whole idea of school is to get an education and if an extracurricular activity like slanderous or offensive comments in a school newspaper disrupt the learning environment then the principal has every right to censor what it says. No two people are alike, what doesn't offend someone may offend someone else so he has to play it on the safe side and keep that out of the paper.
Wendy Fang
Period 1
I felt that the majority rule in the case of Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier was reasonable considering the context of the situation. The principle's original intention was not to remove the articles. He had merely wanted the articles to be revised due to the implications they held for their subjects. But due to bad timing the only way of avoiding potential disaster was to pull the pages entirely. Although the students may have felt that their first amendment rights were violated, ultimately in the school setting (a non-public forum) the school itself has final say on editing if need be. In this case that need arose and appropriate measures were taken in consideration of the safety and sanity of others.
In the court case Acton v Veronia School District I agree with the Supreme Court ruling. This case was brought to the court on the suggestion that the student athlete’s 4th and 14th amendments were being violated. The case involved an athlete and his parents who refused to submit to the school’s policy of random drug testing athletes. Because they refused Acton was ineligible to play sports and argued that there was no reasonable suspicion for him to be tested so the testing was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court ruled that since drug use is especially harmful to athletes this random testing was reasonable and did not have any negatives towards the players. The conditions by which the urine was obtained and tested were suitable and confidential, allowing no argument to be present there. Also, because this is a school district policy there is a little more control given to the administration in order to protect their students. I firmly agree with the Supreme Court ruling in favor of the Veronia School District because drug usage is wrong anyway, so a policy discouraging it for the safety of students should be allowed.
Period 1.
In the case of Bethel vs. Fraser, Matthew Fraser made a speech in school nominating another student for a class election. His speech contained a sexual innuendo, so after he read it, though he was warned by his teachers that it was inappropriate, he was suspended for three days and was not able to make a speech at graduation. Fraser argued that his 1st amendment right of freedom of speech and his Due Process right of the 14th amendment were violated. The court ended up ruling in favor of Fraser and thought that the school should not have suspended him.
I completely agree with the court. First of all, Fraser wasn’t, technically, breaking any rules. He never actually crossed the “prohibition of obscene language” rule. Also, no one told him he couldn’t give the speech; his teachers only warned him not to. I doubt his intentions of the speech were anything other than to nominate another student in a humorous matter.
I feel the reason he got suspended was mostly because of the older generation’s values and views. In older generations, saying anything sexual was considered rude and preposterous. Nowadays, hearing sexual messages is quite common. My friends and I make dirty jokes all the time; we don’t mean to offend anyone; it’s just hilarious. I also hear sexual references used around the hallways, or really anyway else I go.
The school punished Fraser on no grounds other than their personal views, which I can understand, but they never really had any legitimate reason to suspend him. I would have talked to him, maybe informed his parents, and made sure he knew why it hadn’t been a good idea to make the speech. I do not think suspending him was the right way to go, and with that, I agree with the court ruling.
Chris Moruzzi
Period 1
I agree with the court's decision to over rule the principals authority and give the 10 students of the school in Ohio due process. They are guaranteed the right to an education and giving them suspension for 10 days would deprive them of their education, which was officially deemed a version of property from this case. It is necessary that they are given due process (their 14th amendment right) so that they could see how and why they were being suspended, and give them the opportunity to appeal it. Although the students were still suspended in the end, at least they were given the proper procedure that they deserved.
Rachel Seggerman; Period 6
In my case, TLO vs New Jersey, majority in the supreme court ruled that the principle had every right to search her bags because it was reasonable and they had probable cause to look. The argument was that this went against the 4th amendment, which protects the people against unreasonable search and seizure. I believe that the principle's actions did not violate the 4th amendment at all. The search of TLO's bags was, in fact, reasonable because there was an abundance of evidence that she had been doing something wrong. The cigarettes lead to discovering rolling paper, paraphernalia, and even marijuana. Not only are these illegal to have, but completely inappropriate for school. A principle should have the right to search bags when necessary because school is a place to enforce good behavior and a positive learning environment. If there are students that are dismantling this, they should be stopped.
Jackie Wieloch
Period 6
The Supreme Court Case Goss v. Lopez resulted in the justices favoring the students, which in my opinion was correctly decided. The students which were suspended were protected under the Fourteenth Amendment, the right to due process. The Fourteenth Amendment states that no state could “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”. Under the Fourteenth Amendment, it was argued that the student’s right to an education was defined under any person’s property. Suspending a student without any source of notification or a change to appeal that suspension was classified as taking away the student’s property without due process. Therefore, this ruling was very reasonable. As a student, I would want the chance to appeal if I was being suspended. There is a likely chance that there could be a misunderstanding, or a false accusation. Therefore, one can be blamed for a crime not committed, which is very unfair if they are not given a chance to appeal. Suspensions are placed on permanent records, which will later show up when the student is applying to college, or even for a job. It would be extremely unfair if the student lost an opportunity because they were suspended for something they did not do; they just never got their chance to appeal.
Sara Hassan
Period 4
In the case of TLO vs. New Jersey a 14 year old student was suspected of smoking in the bathroom so the principal searched her purse looking for cigarettes but found marijuana and drug paraphenilia. While the fourth amendment protects against unreasonable search and seizure the supreme court ruled siding with the teacher. They ruled that when things are brought into the school it is automatically put under the discretion of the prinicipal or other athority what is a "reasonable" purpose to search someones things. I do agree that he had a reason to search through her purse, however, when the details are looked into I would think he would stop searching when he first found the cigarettes, and not continue to look through her purse.
In Gross vs Lopez it was determined that the right to due process under the 14th ammendment applies to students in school. After ten kids were suspended from school without any type of hearing, the courts decided that even students need to have the opportunity to see the evidense against them and defend themselves like the 14th ammendment guarentees. I agree with this ruling because everyone deserves a chance to tell their side of the story. Hearing the other persons side doesnt create any issues and may even prove the persons innocence.
I do feel that the majority opinion in my Supreme Court case was correctly decided. I had the Bethel vs Fraser case, in this case a student in high school made a speech for his friend using many Sexual innuendos and other remarks that made some students(Freshman), and many of the teachers shocked. The student was suspended for 5 days for his speech but the district court determined that his first amendment rights were violated and thus earned $250 in damages and about $12,000 in attorney fees. The decision was then upheld by the court of appeals. After this happened, the Supreme Court reversed the decision of the court of appeals. I do agree with this because at school even innuendos can and should get you into trouble. Especially if you are insulting someone. Also, during a speech using these innuendos to try and capture an audiences attention is not very smart especially when you dont know what the people listening might think of it.
Ashley Splain
In the case Acton v. Vernonia School District I do not believe that the court’s made the right decision. The student sued the school saying that his fourth and fourteenth amendment rights were being violated, which I believe they were. In schools student’s rights to search and seizure are limited to reasonable suspicion in order to search a person’s belongings, meaning that in reality schools can almost search anything they want in order to be able to do whatever they want in order to be able to find what they are looking for. However I think that this line needs to be drawn at student’s bodies. Just because a student may play a sport does not give any reasonable suspicion that they are using drugs. Randomly testing students is not the best way to approach the problem, and it just seems like the school is trying to make themselves look as if they are doing something about the drug problem in their school without actually solving anything. How is it decided who is tested, what is random, and how can it be assured it really is random? Student’s should not have to submit to an embarrassing test because they want to play a sport and should not punished for not wanting to under go testing when they may have done nothing wrong. While they said they are looking out for the athlete’s health as using drugs and playing a sport could be potentially harmful to their health there is a chance they could find nothing by randomly testing. Thus if the school really cared they should be looking for students that are actually doing drugs and not wasting their time with students that may really be innocent.
I agree with the majority ruling of my case. In my case students thought it against there first ammendment rights that there article got cut. Although it was not freedom of speech I believe that the school should have the right to censor for the greater good of the student body. School should be happy and safe for everyone. I believe it was wrong not to notify the students so they could change it and still get the word out.
Connor Slade
Period 4
In my case of Hazelwood vs. Kuhlmeier the students do not have the same rights as the would out of school. in this case the principal did not like what was written in their school newspaper and they decided to take out they had put that they deemed as inapropriate to be in the school paper. then they took it to the court and they agreed with the schools decision; then they went to court to appeal their decision and they did, they said it was against their freedom of speech and press. i agree with the second courts decision though because students should be allowed to write about pregnancy and stuff in the school paper but if its easy to identify who they are talking about then i think there should be restricitions on what they say.
Zach Wehner Per. 2
Goss v. Lopez
Yes, I do feel that the case was correctly decided because even though the Ohio state law says that the principal of a school can suspend without hearing, the students should still have a right to due process. The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees citizens of the United States the right to due process. But, even though the 10 students who were suspended were given due process they were still suspended because of their misconduct. But they wouldn't have ever been able to figure out why they were suspended unless the 14th Amendment(Due Process had been recognized.
Dan Grant
Per. 6
I do believe that the majority opinion in my Supreme Court case was correctly decided. In the case of New Jersey v. T.L.O, a 14 year old girl was accused of smoking in the girl's bathroom, and, as a result, her belongings were searched by the school administration. During the search, they found cigarettes and rolling papers. A subsequent search produced an amount of marijuana and drug paraphernalia. Charged as a juvenile for the drugs and paraphernalia found, she fought the case saying that the search violated her 4th Amendment rights against unreasonable searches. The Supreme Court ruled that the search was not unconstitutional under the idea that the school had "reasonable suspicion" to do do a search. I agree with this decision. If a girl is accused of smoking then she should be searched for cigarettes, if she has nothing to hide then it's just a loss of the school's time, and if she has cigarettes than the school can rid of them. The further search was also reasonable because the possession of rolling papers is closely related to the use of marijuana in teenagers, thus giving the school reasonable suspicion that the student may be in possession of drugs.
Andrew Cusano Period 6
According to the case of Veronia School District vs. Acton students do not have the right to deny a drug test. The Acton family felt that this violated their fourth and fourteenth amendment right and I agree. The supreme court however disagreed. I do not feel that the supreme court ruled this case correctly. Having to give a drug test can a be an embarrassing thing and I don't think its a big deal that Acton didn't want to give a drug test. I feel that giving a school a right to randomly drug test without probable cause will only cause problems in our schools and have no positive effect.
mike moynihan
period 1
I disagree with the supreme courts majority rule. i feel the rule was way to harsh on the student and the court should have ruled it as such. the school took away his right to an education for exercising his right to freedom of speech even when he said nothing bad just has a second meaning. most anything that is said can be misconstrued and made dirty in the minds of people so to get rid of sexual innuendos you'd have to get rid of all speeches, and who's to draw the line saying whats to much? the most he deserved is a call to the office and an after school detention. and his rights to an education were violated.
In my court case, which was Bethel vs. Frazier, I feel that the majority opinion in the Supreme Court was wrong. Frazier, as brought up in court by judges with the dissenting opinion, was not properly warned of the consequences of his speech. The three teachers who he went to only told him it was inappropriate and never mentioned that he could be punished for delivering the speech. Also, I feel that the sexual innuendos weren't inappropriate enough to be considered a disturbance to the learning process. Because it wasn't too inappropriate enough, Frazier's right to free speech, granted to him by the 1st Amendment, was taken away from him because his punishment was that he couldn't speak at graduation.
Aside from all the facts, I feel that the punishments for this speech were to severe. I have heard much worse in speeches (profanity, not so much sexual innuendos) and I feel that Frazier had the complete right to deliver his speech. The school was wrong to suspend him and to deny him his free speech.
In Our case I think the supreme court made a good judge.It is right that no ones freedom of speech should be taken from them but every place should have it's own rules and not everything should be written in the news paper.I think it's kind of similar to the case about the gay soldier who people were protesting at his funeral.he may have done something wrong but It's not right to protest at someones funeral because you think that you should have a freedom of speech and say anything you want,anywhere you want.
Josh Squire
Period 1
I completely agree with the supreme court's verdict in the case having to do with the drug testing on athletes. It is not right to drug test every student because they by law have to be students and it would be an invasion of privacy to drug test those who have to be a part of that institution legally. Those that volunteer to do things outside of the mandatory school curriculum such as sports may be subject students to do whatever it deems necessary and legal for them to be a part of that activity.
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