| Bethel School District v. Fraser | | Supreme Court of the United States | Argued March 3, 1986
Decided July 7, 1986
| | Full case name: | Bethel School District No. 403, et al. v. Matthew N. Fraser, a minor, et al. | | | Citations: | 478 U.S. 675; 106 S. Ct. 3159; 92 L. Ed. 2d 549; 1986 U.S. LEXIS 139; 54 U.S.L.W. 5054 | | | | Prior history: | Judgment for plaintiff; affirmed, 755 F.2d 1356 (1985); certiorari granted, 474 U.S. 814 (1985) | | | | | | Holding | | The First Amendment, as applied through the Fourteenth, permits a public school to punish a student for giving a lewd and indecent, but not obscene, speech at a school assembly. Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded. | | Court membership | Chief Justice: Warren E. Burger
Associate Justices: William J. Brennan, Jr., Byron White, Thurgood Marshall, Harry Blackmun, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., William Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor | | Case opinions | Majority by: Burger
Joined by: White, Powell, Rehnquist, O'Connor
Concurrence by: Brennan
Concurrence by: Blackmun
Dissent by: Marshall
Dissent by: Stevens
| | Laws applied | | U.S. Const. amends. I, XIV; 42 U.S.C. ยง 1983 | Bethel School District v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675 (1986), was a United States Supreme Court decision involving free speech and public schools. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ...
The Supreme Court of the United States (sometimes colloquially referred to by the acronym SCOTUS[1]) is the highest judicial body in the United States and leads the federal judiciary. ...
Warren Earl Burger (September 17, 1907 – June 25, 1995) was Chief Justice of the United States from 1969 to 1986. ...
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Byron Raymond White (June 8, 1917 – April 15, 2002) won fame both as a football running back and as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. ...
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Justice Harry Blackmun Harry Andrew Blackmun (November 12, 1908 – March 4, 1999) was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1970 to 1994. ...
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William Hubbs Rehnquist (October 1, 1924 – September 3, 2005) was an American lawyer, jurist, and a political figure who served as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States and later as the Chief Justice of the United States. ...
John Paul Stevens (born April 20, 1920) is currently the most senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. ...
Sandra Day OConnor (born March 26, 1930) is an American jurist who was the first woman to serve as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. ...
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Amendment XIV in the National Archives The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (Amendment XIV) is one of the post-Civil War amendments (known as the Reconstruction Amendments), first intended to secure rights for former slaves. ...
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The Supreme Court of the United States (sometimes colloquially referred to by the acronym SCOTUS[1]) is the highest judicial body in the United States and leads the federal judiciary. ...
On April 26, 1983, Matthew Fraser, a Spanaway, Washington, high school senior, gave a speech nominating classmate Jeff Kuhlman for Associated Student Body Vice President. The speech was filled with sexual innuendos, but not obscenity, prompting disciplinary action from the administration. is the 116th day of the year (117th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
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Fraser's speech was as follows:
"I know a man who is firm - he's firm in his pants, he's firm in his shirt, his character is firm - but most [of] all, his belief in you the students of Bethel, is firm. Jeff Kuhlman is a man who takes his point and pounds it in. If necessary, he'll take an issue and nail it to the wall. He doesn't attack things in spurts - he drives hard, pushing and pushing until finally - he succeeds. Jeff trent heideman is gay is a man who will go to the very end - even the climax, for each and every one of you. So please vote for Jeff Kuhlman, as he'll never come between us and the best our school can be [long pause after the word "come" on oral delivery, but no comma in the written version, according to Matthew N Fraser]" After appealing through the grievance procedures of his school, he was still found to be in violation of a school policy against disruptive behavior. These grounds later evolved to include obscenity at trial, but obscenity, according to Fraser, was not listed as grounds for his punishment in his initial hearing with school vice-principal Christy Blair. Fraser was suspended from school for two days as a result, was prohibited from speaking at his graduation ceremony, and his name was stricken from the ballot used to elect three graduation speakers. Fraser nonetheless was selected by a write-in vote which placed him second overall among the top three finishers, although Bethel High School administrators refused to accept the write-in vote as a valid result, and continued to deny Fraser the opportunity to speak at graduation.
With approval from his parents and help from ACLU cooperating attorney Jeff Haley, Matt Fraser filed a lawsuit against the school authorities claiming a violation of his First Amendment right to free speech, and the United States District Court, Honorable Jack Tanner, ruled in his favor. The first ten Amendments to the U.S. Constitution make up the Bill of Rights. ...
Freedom of speech is the right to freely say what one pleases, as well as the related right to hear what others have stated. ...
The school district then appealed to the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals which ruled in Fraser's favor with a broadly worded opinion. The school district asked the United States Supreme Court to consider the case and it agreed to do so. The US Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals in 7-2 vote to uphold the suspension, saying that the school district's policy did not violate the First Amendment. Chief Justice Warren Burger delivered the Court's opinion, in what ended up along with the Graham Rudmann decision to be the final case of the Burger Court era. Fraser refers to this as "the silver lining in the grim cloud of my defeat." Justices William J. Brennan and Harry Blackmun delivered concurring opinions, while Thurgood Marshall and John Paul Stevens dissented. Federal courts Supreme Court Circuit Courts of Appeal District Courts Elections Presidential elections Midterm elections Political Parties Democratic Republican Third parties State & Local government Governors Legislatures (List) State Courts Local Government Other countries Atlas US Government Portal The Chief Justice of the United States is the head of the judicial...
Warren Burger at a press conference in May 1969 shortly after he was nominated to be Chief Justice of the United States. ...
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Justice Harry Blackmun Harry Andrew Blackmun (November 12, 1908 – March 4, 1999) was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1970 to 1994. ...
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John Paul Stevens (born April 20, 1920) is currently the most senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. ...
Though the Court distinguished its 1969 decision "Tinker v. Des Moines", which upheld the right for students to express themselves where their words are nondisruptive and could not be seen as connected with the school, the ruling in Fraser can be seen as a limitation on the scope of that ruling, prohibiting certain styles of expression that are sexually vulgar. Holding The First Amendment, as applied through the Fourteenth, did not permit a public school to punish a student for wearing a black armband as an anti-war protest, absent any evidence that the rule was necessary to avoid substantial interference with school discipline or the rights of others. ...
See also
Holding The Court held that public school curricular student newspapers that have not been established as forums for student expression are subject to a lower level of First Amendment protection than independent student expression or newspapers established (by policy or practice) as forums for student expression. ...
Holding The First Amendment, as applied through the Fourteenth, did not permit a public school to punish a student for wearing a black armband as an anti-war protest, absent any evidence that the rule was necessary to avoid substantial interference with school discipline or the rights of others. ...
Holding Because schools may take steps to safeguard those entrusted to their care from speech that can reasonably be regarded as encouraging illegal drug use, the school officials in this case did not violate the First Amendment by confiscating the pro-drug banner and suspending Frederick. ...
Holding The First Amendment, as applied through the Fourteenth, prohibits states from making the public display of a single four-letter expletive a criminal offense, without a more specific and compelling reason than a general tendency to disturb the peace. ...
Holding Obscene materials are defined as those that the average person, applying contemporary community standards, find, taken as a whole, appeal to the prurient interest; that depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable state law; and that, taken as a whole, lack serious...
Broussard v. ...
This is a list of all the United States Supreme Court cases from volume 478 of the United States Reports: , , , Bowers v. ...
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