In Texas, 17-year-old high school student

Jennifer Boccia

was suspended for wearing a black armband to school to protest restraints on free speech that followed the shootings in Littleton. Boccia was also reprimanded by her school principal, Ira Sparks, for daring to tell her story to the media; she was told that if she wanted to clear her record, she should refrain from speaking to the media before discussing her remarks with school officials.

Boccia made a federal case of it and won a settlement from her school vindicating her First Amendment rights. Sometimes schools back down when threatened with lawsuits, and many students willing to challenge their suspensions should ultimately prevail in court if their judges recognize the Bill of Rights. But repression is becoming respectable, and some federal judges are as wary of free speech as school administrators are. Student speech rights have, after all, been steadily eroding for the past two decades. The landmark 1969 Supreme Court decision

Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District

upholding the right to wear a black armband to school to protest the Vietnam War has not been overruled, but its assertion that students do not leave their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse door has not been honored either.

In Texas, 17-year-old high school student

Jennifer Boccia

was suspended for wearing a black armband to school to protest restraints on free speech that followed the shootings in Littleton. Boccia was also reprimanded by her school principal, Ira Sparks, for daring to tell her story to the media; she was told that if she wanted to clear her record, she should refrain from speaking to the media before discussing her remarks with school officials.

Boccia made a federal case of it and won a settlement from her school vindicating her First Amendment rights. Sometimes schools back down when threatened with lawsuits, and many students willing to challenge their suspensions should ultimately prevail in court if their judges recognize the Bill of Rights. But repression is becoming respectable, and some federal judges are as wary of free speech as school administrators are. Student speech rights have, after all, been steadily eroding for the past two decades. The landmark 1969 Supreme Court decision Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District upholding the right to wear a black armband to school to protest the Vietnam War has not been overruled, but its assertion that students do not leave their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse door has not been honored either.