2. Tinker v. Des Moines (1969) was a U. S
Tinker v. Des Moines (1969) was a U.S. Supreme Court case that resulted in a decision defining the constitutional rights of students in U.S. public schools.
The Tinker test is still used by courts today to determine whether a school’s disciplinary actions violate students’ First Amendment rights.
The Tinker Test says that school officials may only prohibit student speech that causes, or reasonably could be expected to cause, material and substantial disruption of the school’s operations or that “invades” the rights of others.
The most important implication of this test is that school officials may not punish or prohibit speech merely because a disagreement of the ideas expressed. Nor may they act to suppress or punish speech because of a generalized fear of disruption. They may, however, enforce reasonable regulations limiting the time, place and manner of student expression as long as the regulations are necessary for the school to perform its educational function.
THIS JUST IN: These issues persist. On September 2, 2008, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the decision of a federal judge in finding that the Watson Chapel School District (WCSD) in Little Rock, Arkansas, violated the First Amendment rights of students when they disciplined them for wearing black armbands to protest the student apparel policy. In October 2006 the ACLU of Arkansas filed suit against WCSD alleging the district violated the free speech rights of those students and a federal judge agreed. The school district appealed to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, and that Court upheld the lower court’s ruling. The Court said that by winning this lawsuit, the student plaintiffs did something “that benefitted all of the students in the school” and “vindicated” students’ right to free speech.

3. Often, the “First Amendment” is used as short hand for freedom of speech or freedom of expression. But, the First Amendment protects several rights that are crucial to our freedom of conscience and ability to express our thoughts and concerns, particularly to government.
1st Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

4. San Diego Student Speech case
La Jolla High Senior Benches
Q. Do you think students have the right to paint a political message on a school bench?
Q. Do you think administrators have the right or responsibility to protect students from negative or controversial subjects?
The San Diego ACLU and Bostwick & Jassy LLP filed a complaint on behalf of several La Jolla High School students whose political messages were whitewashed from campus benches that had traditionally been open for free expression.
The "senior benches" on the LJHS campus are a traditional forum for student speech. The school has allowed students to paint messages on the benches about numerous and diverse topics, including Associated Student Body election slogans, support for presidential candidates, birthday wishes, football victories, and love notes. On February 15, 2011, the day after massive popular protests erupted in Iran, two LJHS students painted "Freedom for Iran" and "Down with Dictator" on the benches to express their support for freedom and democracy in Iran. As she wrote in an op-ed published by the San Diego Union-Tribune, the student author of those messages came to the United States with her parents "to escape the oppression in Iran" and be "educated in an environment where freedom of expression was respected and valued." Unfortunately, the LJHS administration chose to immediately whitewash her messages and later declared that the benches are reserved only for "positive messages about LJHS students and school activities." As argued by the ACLU and Bostwick & Jassy, "positive messages" is a vague and unconstitutional standard for curtailing student speech. The administration also declared that students wishing to post any other messages on nearby bulletin boards must obtain prior approval from the administration, in clear violation of federal and state law, including Education Code section 48907, which is a landmark California law protecting freedom of speech for students. "The law guarantees freedom of expression to California students," said David Blair-Loy, legal director of the San Diego ACLU. "La Jolla High should be celebrating the commitment of its students to freedom and democracy, not clamping down on it." When Yumehiko Hoshijima, a graduating LJHS senior, stood up for freedom of speech by painting "Freedom for LJHS & Iran" and "Ed. Code 48907" on the benches, the administration whitewashed those messages as well and threatened disciplinary action "if inappropriate signs continue to appear on the benches." LJHS Principal Dana Shelburne declared, "If we can’t figure it out, we paint it out." "La Jolla High School has allowed students to paint messages on these benches for years," said Jean-Paul Jassy, partner in Bostwick & Jassy and an LJHS graduate (class of ’92). "Now, the school is turning its back on the tradition of free expression it used to uphold. Censorship like this is not what we should be teaching our students." "It is ironic that students advocating for the civil rights of citizens in an oppressive regime like Iran are having their own rights ignored here in the United States," said Sarah Abshear, staff attorney of the San Diego ACLU. On February 18, 2011, the San Diego ACLU sent a letter to the principal and San Diego Unified School District, seeking to resolve the matter without litigation. The District finally responded on the merits over two months later, refusing to acknowledge any problem and leaving no option but to litigate the case.
On May 27, 2011, La Jolla High’s principal ordered the senior benches to be removed by bulldozer. The San Diego Unified School District immediately ordered Principal Shelburne not to remove the benches prior to a hearing scheduled the following week. At the hearing in Superior Court on June 9, 2011, Judge Jeffrey Barton ordered La Jolla High to stop whitewashing students’ political messages from the benches. The case is now in settlement talks.

6. Stratford High School Goose Creek, SC
The Stratford High School raid can be used to discuss the meaning of the 4th Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and the requirement that warrants “particularly describ[e]” what is to be searched. Arguments can be made on both sides as to what would justify this kind of raid and search.
The November 5, 2003 police raid of Stratford High School was recorded by both the school’s surveillance cameras and a police camera.  The tapes show students as young as 14 forced to the ground in handcuffs as officers in SWAT team uniforms and bulletproof vests aim guns at their heads and lead a drug dog to tear through their book bags. The ACLU represented 20 of the nearly 150 students caught up in the raid.
The raid was initiated by the school’s principal at the time, George McCrackin, who resigned shortly after the tapes surfaced on national television. The raid was authorized based on the principal’s suspicion that a single student was dealing marijuana. The raid was carried out despite the suspected student being absent at the time.  No drugs or weapons were found during the raid, and no charges were filed.
Following the raid, the ACLU brought a lawsuit on behalf of students’ families charging police and school officials with violating the students’ right to be free from unlawful search and seizure and use of excessive force.  The lawsuit demanded a court order declaring the raid unconstitutional and blocking the future use of such tactics, as well as damages on behalf of the students.
In addition to recognizing students’ rights to be free from unconstitutional search and seizure and restricting police tactics, the settlement establishes a $1.6 million dollar fund to compensate the students and help cover medical and counseling costs from the incident. Learn more at:

7. Although this case is not exclusively about searches at school, students may ask about the legality of searches and locker searches.
In New Jersey v. T.L.O. (1985), the Supreme Court held that school officials need only meet the lower reasonable suspicion standard to conduct searches of students. The Court found in this case that the information obtained by school officials (including rolling papers in the student’s purse) made it reasonable for them to search the purse more thoroughly.
The Court explained that a search and seizure is reasonable only if it is “justified at its inception” and “reasonable in its scope.” Id. at 341. The Court defined the test as follows:
[A] search of a student by a teacher or other school official will be "justified at its inception" when there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search will turn up evidence that the student has violated or is violating either the law or the rules of the school. Such a search will be permissible in its scope when the measures adopted are reasonably related to the objectives of the search and not excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of the student and the nature of the infraction.”
Beyond that rule, the law varies.
Students must consider any desk or locker, or any other place provided by the school for their belongings, to be searchable without a warrant. Students should not put anything in these places that they would not want anyone to find or see. A school might be able to conduct a search of locker or desk without a warrant, consent by the student, or even any particular suspicion, so long as there is a written policy that allows such searches and students are informed in writing that an inspection may occur. If a school does not have such a stated policy, failing a warrant or a student's consent, the search must be based on reasonable suspicion.
Courts have upheld schools’ use of drug-sniffing dogs to search all school lockers. These searches have been upheld on the grounds that the search is relatively unintrusive and the goal of keeping drugs out of school is very important. However, many courts have distinguished between the use of dogs to sniff lockers and the use of dogs to sniff the individual. While the former has generally been allowed, the latter has not.

8. Case of Savana Redding BACKGROUND
13-year-old Savana Redding was escorted to the assistant principal’s office and shown a day planner containing knives and other contraband.
Savana admitted it was hers but said she had lent the planner to a friend.
The assistant principal then showed her 4 prescription-strength, and 1 over-the-counter, pain reliever pills, all of which were banned by the school’s rules.
Savana denied knowledge about the pills, but was told that another student said she was giving the pills to fellow students.
The assistant principal searched Savana’s backpack, finding nothing.
Savana then was taken to the nurse’s office, where she was told to take off her outer clothing, pull her bra out and shake it, and pull out the elastic on her underpants. No pills were found.
Savana’s mother sued the school district and its officials claiming that the strip search violated Savana’s Fourth Amendment rights. 
In response, the school district argued that it had reasonable suspicion to believe Savana was hiding additional pills in her underwear.
DECISION
US Supreme Court ruled that Savana’s rights were violated by the strip search:

9. Redding v. Safford Unified School District
Do you think school administrators were right to search Savana, even including searching inside her underwear?
Do you think there was enough proof that Savana might be carrying contraband?
What would you do if you found yourself in Savana’s situation?
DISCUSSION
Students: do you think school administrators were right to search Savana, even including searching inside her underwear?
Do you think there was enough proof that Savana might be carrying contraband?
What would you do if you found yourself in Savana’s situation?
Re. enough proof:
The strip search was undertaken based solely on the uncorroborated claims of a classmate facing punishment.
No attempt was made to corroborate the classmate’s accusationss among other students or teachers.
No physical evidence suggested that Redding might be in possession of ibuprofen pills or that she was concealing them in her underwear.
No attempt was made to contact Redding’s parents prior to conducting the strip search.

10. 1878- In Wilkerson v. Utah, the U. S
In Wilkerson v. Utah, the U.S. Supreme Court stated that death by firing squad was NOT cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
1958- In Trop v. Dulles, the Court found it was unconstitutional for the government to cancel the citizenship of a U.S. citizen as a punishment. Trop, a U.S. citizen and former U.S. soldier, was denied a passport based on a prior charge for deserting the army.
1980- In Rummel v. Estelle, the Court upheld a life sentence with the possibility of parole for fraud crimes totaling $230.
1991- In Harmelin v. Michigan, the Court ruled that the Eighth Amendment's Cruel and Unusual Clause allowed a state to impose a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the possession of 672 grams of cocaine.
2003- In Lockyer v. Andrade, the Court decided that no "clearly established" law held that a three-strikes sentence was cruel and unusual punishment, the 50-years-to-life sentence imposed in this case (for shoplifting videotapes as the 3rd offense) was not cruel and unusual punishment.

11. Patently unnecessary A punishment that is by its severity degrading
to human dignity (torture)
Obviously inflicted in a wholly arbitrary fashion
Furman v. Georgia (1972), 5-4, held that the death penalty was cruel and unusual because it was implemented in a random and capricious fashion, discriminating against blacks and the poor. Two of the five justices held that the death penalty was itself cruel and unusual.
Four years latter in Gregg v. Georgia (1976), the Supreme Court held that changes to the capital punishment laws had fixed the 8th Amendment problems with the death penalty. Those changes included bifurcated trials in which guilt and sentence were determined separately and greater review by appellate courts.
In recent years, the Supreme Court has held that it is unconstitutional to execute people who are mentally retarded (Atkins v. Virginia, 2002) or who were under 18 years old at the time they committed the crime (Roper v. Simmons, 2005.)
Today, although popular support for the death penalty remains relatively high (about 65% for murders), support has declined as the debate over the death penalty continues, fueled by DNA evidence of actual innocence of people sentenced to death, the cost of prosecuting death penalty cases compared to life sentence cases, and questions of fairness for poor people and people of color. Opinion has shifted against the belief that the death penalty deters crime.
For more info, see
Clearly and totally rejected throughout society
Patently unnecessary

12. Photo of Protestors Simulating Water-Boarding
Discussion question: Should water-boarding count as cruel and unusual punishment?
In 2008, the CIA admitted it had used water-boarding on three detainees suspected of being Al-Quaeda terrorists (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zudbaydah, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri) in 2002 and News stories citing CIA insiders say that water-boarding was one of several “enhanced interrogation techniques” being used on detainees. Other reports say the CIA later banned the use of water-boarding. In July 2007, the President signed an executive order banning torture in the interrogation of detainees, but Human Rights Watch expressed dismay that the order was not clear enough to end practices like water-boarding.
For more information, see
Does it matter that the detention and interrogation took place outside the U.S. and to a non-U.S. citizen? In Rasul v. Bush (2004), the Supreme Court rejected the argument that U.S. courts do not have jurisdiction over habeas corpus petitions for foreign national detainees at Guantanamo, which is part of Cuba but over which the U.S. has control. Habeas jurisdiction, at least, depends on the degree of control but applies to "all ... dominions under the sovereign's control” and regardless of citizenship.
Photo of Protestors Simulating Water-Boarding

13. Fourteenth Amendment 14TH Amendment, Section 1
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

15. In 1958, it was a crime in Virginia and 15 other states for
a white person to marry a black person.
Richard and Mildred Loving married in Washington, D.C. and tried to return to their home state of Virginia.
They were arrested and sentenced to 1 year in jail for
getting married if they stayed in Virginia. The ACLU took
their case.
In 1967, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled the law
was unconstitutional.

16. Windsor v. United States (2013)
Edie Windsor was forced to pay almost $400,000 in federal estate taxes when her beloved spouse, Thea Spyer, died in They’d been together for 44 years, and were legally married. If “Thea” had been “Theo,” Edie would not have had to pay any estate taxes.
Edie challenged the “Defense of Marriage Act” that caused this disparity. Passed by Congress in 1996, DOMA treated the marriages of straight people one way and the marriages of gay people another way. Edie thought this was discrimination that the U.S. government couldn’t justify.
In a historic civil rights ruling this June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that DOMA was unconstitutional, and that the federal government cannot discriinate against married lesbian and gay couples in determining federal benefits and protections.
Compare Loving v. Virginia with Windsor v. United States.
Windsor v. United States (2013)

17. The “Right to Vote” can be a good way to discuss:
the people left out of the Constitution at the time of its adoption;
the process for amending the Constitution (see also Slide 20); and
the role of the states and legislation in providing for our rights.
There is in fact no “right to vote” as such in the Constitution, only a requirement that each state provide for a republican form of government. As such, who has the “right to vote” has always been determined by the states.
15th Amendment
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
19th Amendment
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
24th Amendment
The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.
26th Amendment
The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.
However, Constitutional amendments have specified that the right to vote cannot be denied to people based on
“race, color, or previous condition of servitude” (15th Amendment, 1870);
“sex” (19th Amendment, 1920);
“failure to pay any poll tax or other tax” (24th Amendment, 1964);
age for those “citizens who are eighteen years of age or older” (26th Amendment, 1971).
The National Voting Rights Act of 1965 is landmark legislation that expanded protections for the right to vote. Specifically, the law:
Prohibits literacy tests as a condition of registering to vote;
Establishes federal government oversight of how states administer elections; and
Requires publication of ballots in other languages when requested by voters.

18. Generally, the Articles of the Constitution define the power and authority of the federal branches of government, and the Bill of Rights defines the rights of the people or the limits on government power.
2nd amendment
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
3rd amendment
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
9th amendment
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
10th amendment
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively; or to the people.

19. Several Amendments protect Due Process rights
Several Amendments protect Due Process rights. It may help students to understand that due process is intended to protect fairness.
5th Amendment
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
6th Amendment
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted wit the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.
7th Amendment
In Suites at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed $20 dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in an Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

20. Standard 12.4, #2
Article 5:
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

21. While over 10,000 have been proposed, only 17
All 27 amendments, including the Bill of Rights have been added through the first method of Congress proposing amendments.
The Constitution has never been amended using the second process of the states proposing amendments.
Standard 12.4, #2
While over 10,000 have been proposed, only 17
amendments to the Constitution have been adopted since final ratification of the Bill of Rights.

22. What do you think? Why is it so difficult to add an amendment?
Should it be easier?
What amendment would you add?
The rights protected in the Constitution are regarded in international law as “first generation” rights, or civil and political rights. In addition to the U.S. Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) are viewed as primary reflections of first generation rights.
Second generation rights are typically described as economic and social rights, exemplified by the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (1966). The right to health care and the right to a quality education are considered economic and social rights.
Third generation rights are the least well defined and are still evolving, but include, for example, the right to a healthy environment.