Speaking Up: The Unintended Costs of Free Speech in Public Schools

by Anne Proffitt Dupre

Just how much freedom of speech should high school students have? Does giving children and adolescents a far-reaching right of expression, without joining it to responsibility, ultimately result in an asylum that is run by its inmates? Since the late 1960s, the United States Supreme Court has struggled to clarify the contours of constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech rights for students. But as this thought-provoking book contends, these court opinions have pitted students—and their litigious parents—against schools while undermining the schools’ necessary disciplinary authority. In a clear and lively style, sprinkled with wry humor, Anne Proffitt Dupre examines the way courts have wrestled with student expression in school. These fascinating cases deal with political protest, speech codes, student newspapers, book banning in school libraries, and the long-standing struggle over school prayer. Dupre also devotes an entire chapter to teacher speech rights. In the final chapter on the 2007 “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” case, she asks what many people probably when the Supreme Court gave teenagers the right to wear black armbands in school to protest the Vietnam War, just how far does this right go? Did the Court also give students who just wanted to provoke their principal the right to post signs advocating drug use? Each chapter is full of insight into famous decisions and the inner workings of the courts. Speaking Up offers eye-opening history for students, teachers, lawyers, and parents seeking to understand how the law attempts to balance order and freedom in schools.

Genres: Nonfiction

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 15, 2009

Reviews

[Perry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent primer on the issues of schools and free speech. It is also a study of how Supreme Court decisions are made – not in a vacuum. Public schools are a knotty proposition because the teachers are government employees, but – particularly in universities – have academic freedom. The cases that push to the highest court are strange and rare. I hesitate to think what an update on this book would look like.

[Suzanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is really interesting. It tells how schools lost control (and the respect) of the students through various lawsuits, beginning in 1969 (shocking!), which leaves them now unable to control the classrooms for fear of parental lawsuits. The only negative thing is that I'm having trouble getting through it because it reads like a law brief or a graduate thesis (almost, not exactly, for you lawyers out there) so you really need to be able to concentrate on it, and I'm not finding as much time to devote to it as I'd like.