The Trial
"A school is no place to decide constitutional rights."
- Craig Sawyer
In March 1966, supported by the ICLU and a 27-year-old lawyer, Dan Johnston, the students and their fathers as "next-friends" filed a lawsuit in the District Court against the Des Moines Schools for violation of First Amendment rights. Speaking in the court, though nervous, the students courageously recounted events and testified their continued support for peace.
“When people are getting killed, it’s important to me.” |
"Our parents supported us but did not put us up to it.” |
Click pictures to enlarge.
Disappointed by the District Court's decision against the students, the Tinkers and Eckhardts fought for the next three years in the courts, finally appealing to the Supreme Court.
The Final Court
"Our history says that it is this sort of hazardous freedom - this kind of openness - that is the basis of our national strength and of the independence and vigor of American's who grow up and live in this relatively permissive, often disputatious, society."
- Justice Abe Fortas
On February 24, 1969, the Supreme Court in the landmark 7-2 ruling, recognized the armbands as a form of symbolic speech protected under the First Amendment and finding no evidence of substantial disruption in schools caused by the armbands, limited school officials from censoring controversial views based only on fear of disruption.
Source: Kansas City National Archives- Click pictures to enlarge.