Students Of The Majority Opinion And The Dissent: An Analysis

Children are constantly learning lessons whether they’re taught by parents, books, or cartoons. In an effort to shape them into good children, kids are first taught about what good means, usually in the form of manners, patience, and respect, as they are herded away from bad behaviors such as stealing or lying. As they continue to grow, however, and their view of the world expands, there is one lesson that they are left to learn themselves. While the black and white of the world blends together in their eyes, they have to learn to interpret the different shades of gray. During the Vietnam War era tensions within America became a frightening mass of swirling shades of gray, and the case of Tinker v. Des Moines came into being. Several students
Justice Fortas uses a tangible measurement of the lack of physical confrontations as evidence for the student’s protest not being disruptive. In Justice Black’s Dissent the evidence provided is that the student’s minds were clearly distracted from their schoolwork judging by the report, but this is not only impossible to quantify and subjective to the students, teachers, and judges, it’s also almost certainly not an absolute constant throughout the student body. Justice Fortas’ next point is that the court has previously held that students retain their rights while on school grounds. Justice Black specially criticizes this point, arguing that the cases Justice Fortas cites to come to his conclusion are irrelevant to this case or inadequate as a whole, and that students do not have full rights in the special environment of a school. He ties this in to the idea that schools are environments where students should be the recipients of knowledge, and not platforms for students to express their political views. As student rights are a hotly contested topic both Justice’s arguments are largely rooted in their own opinions, but by general consensus and the manner by which schools promote themselves, it is a platform for students to freely express themselves and, by extension, their thoughts and opinions. The final point of contention between the Majority and Dissent are Justice Fortas’ conclusion that controversial speech leads to a prosperous America and Justice Black’s connection between giving the students too much leeway in schools and large amounts of youth crime. Justice Fortas writes that it’s off of these clashing opinions that are being fostered in the children of America from which America is independent and full of vigor. Justice Black arrives at the opposite conclusion. He writes that allowing students to blatantly defy authority like this they will lead to them to add to