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The first court that the Tinkers went to was a district court. This court decided that prohibiting the use of the armbands was the correct thing to do. By doing so the school district avoided disturbances which include fights, arguments, and bullying.
Not satisfied with this the Tinkers decided to take the case to a higher court. Here the Court of Appeals couldn’t agree with each other and the final decision ended in a tie. In case of a tie the decision of the lower courts stands. So this means that the Tinkers lost the case again.
Again not satisfied with the decision they decide to challenge the courts again and go to the Supreme Court. Here the decision was 7-2 in favor of the Tinkers. The court decided that by restricting the armbands in school they restricted the students freedom of speech.

Supreme Court 2

The issue with this case wasn’t the armbands themselves but what it represented. By not allowing the children to wear the black armbands they where interfering with their freedom of speech. The other issue is from the schools point of view. Allowing the kids to wear the armbands could cause problems in school such as fights, arguments, and children paying more attention to the armbands rather than their work. Here I have to agree with the schools since the kids grow up in different environments and most likely have different beliefs. This could and would’ve definitely ended with at least one school fight between students who support the war and those who don’t support it. The school was just doing its job which is to protect the children.

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The Vietnam War caused a lot of controversy during the 1960’s in the US, so it isn’t a surprise that many Americans protested against the war. Well the Tinkers also protested The Vietnam War except when the children did it they got in trouble. The Des Moines School District was well aware of this and decided to take action against this. The school district decided to ban students from wearing black armbands which represented the people protesting the war and whoever refused to remove them would be suspended from school (http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/comm/free_speech/tinker.html).

"First Monday in October"

The movie “First Monday in October” brings up a few interesting topics like should pornography be censored? Are there any issues with pornography and the internet? And is there an issue with appointing a female justice?
Pornography is just as controversial as murder and terrorism, but people’s tolerance may have shifted since the 70’s. People’s opinions on things are way different than ever before. In the past many people believed pornography was something horrendous but now majority of the people would say that it is art or freedom of speech. This may be because the younger generations are more liberal than the older generation. You can see this in the movies, music, t.v. shows, and the way teens talk nowadays. My opinion is like the majority, porn is porn and you don’t have to watch it if you don’t want to. It also is freedom of speech because there is really nothing obscene in my opinion just two people doing what they’re being paid for.
The internet has been more controversial now more than ever, and it isn’t a surprise that pornography is one of the causes. On the internet there isn’t much protection from anything except for common sense and parental controls. But parental controls aren’t very useful against kids who know how to work the computer better than their parents so this makes it easy for any kid to access porn sites or just about any other site for that matter.
As far as a female Justice, I don’t really care what gender they are. Sure it might affect their opinion on things, but then again a male Justice would be biased too on some issues despite what the evidence says.

Supreme Court Case Update

I found out that before the students went to school with their armbands, the school had created a rule that prohibited the use of the black armbands and anyone caught with them would be suspended if they refused to remove them. The Tinkers were aware of this and were also part of a group which protested the Vietnam War [http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/comm/free_speech/tinker.html]. This group created the idea of wearing the armbands and fasting on 2 days around Christmas and New Years. Also one of the judges, Justice Hugo Black who voted against the kids, said that by allowing the kids to wear the armbands they might be encouraging other kids to break school rules [http://www.infoplease.com/us/supreme-court/cases/ar39.html]
Since I will not be here next week I will not prepare anything for the class. But I will update my blog.