That's what I like to tell kids around the country.

You don't have to be the most courageous person on earth.

You can just use your little bit of courage, your tiny bit, and you'll be amazed what could happen.

Hi, and welcome back to Amicus Slate's podcast about the court and the Supreme Court and the rule of law.

I'm Dahlia Lufwick and I cover many, if not most of those things for Slate.

We've been spending this summer with some of our favorite books and some of our favorite

people that have connections to the Supreme Court.

And this week, we wanted to share an interview that I did with

Mary Beth Tinker, the famous armband wearing student protester whose 60s-era lawsuit became the

hallmark litigation around student protest and speech. And I think that because some of the

listeners here are under the age of 18 and heading back to school in the next couple of days and weeks, we thought this might be a really nice time to revisit questions of what can you say in a school protest.

So here we are.

Let me tell you about Mary Beth Tinker.

In December of 1965, a group of students, 65, long time ago, a group of students in Des Moines wanted to show their support for a truce that had been proposed in the Vietnam War. They decided to wear black armbands to school. And on December 16th, Mary Beth Tinker and Christopher Eckhart wore their armbands to school,

and they were sent home. The students sued the school district for violating their right of

free expression. The district court dismissed the case and said the school district's actions

were totally reasonable. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit agreed with them. So that's two losses for Mary Beth Tinker. But in February of 1969, in a seven to two decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that students do not, quote, shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate, end quote.

It was a landmark decision for the first time the justices ruled that the First Amendment applied to public schools

and that school officials could not censor student speech unless it was really disruptive.

Because wearing a black armband was not disruptive, the court ruled that the

First Amendment protected the right of Mary Beth Tinker and her co-students to wear them.

Later on in the show, we're going to talk to Professor Jeffrey Stone. He teaches constitutional law

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