PRESENTATION OUTLINE
It applies to journalism students because the first ammendment is about freedom of speech and journalism is about writing how you feel.
At a public school in Des Moines, Iowa, students organized a silent protest against the Vietnam War. Students planned to wear black armbands to school to protest the fighting but the principal found out and told the students they would be suspended if they wore the armbands. Despite the warning, students wore the armbands and were suspended. During their suspension the students' parents sued the school for violating their children's right to free speech. A U.S. district court sided with the school, ruling that wearing armbands could disrupt learning. The students appealed the ruling to a U.S. Court of Appeals but lost and took their case to the United States Supreme Court.
In 1969 the United States Supreme Court ruled in a 7-2 decision in favor of the students. The high court agreed that students' free rights should be protected and said, "Students don't shed their constitutional rights at the school house gates."
WHAT IS THE SPLC AND WHAT SERVICES DO THEY PROVIDE?
The Student Press Law Center (SPLC) is a non-profit organization in the United States that aims at protecting the freedom of the press for student journalists, usually from high school and university student newspapers. It describes itself as "an advocate for student free-press rights [that] provides information, advice and legal assistance at no charge to students and the educators who work with them."
