FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sept. 29, 1999
CONTACT: Chris Friesleben, (515) 271-2833
ACLU PRESIDENT TOPS LIST OF SPEAKERS GATHERING
AT DRAKE UNIVERSITY TO DISCUSS STUDENT RIGHTS
Nadine Strossen, president of the American Civil Liberties Union, will be the keynote speaker at Drake University Friday, Oct. 8, as constitutionalists, civil libertarians, lawyers, school administrators, teachers and students gather to discuss student rights on the 30th anniversary of the case that first brought the issue to the forefront of the nation's conscience.
Strossen's address, which is free and open to the public, is titled "Keeping the Constitution Inside the Schoolhouse Gate." It will begin at 7 p.m. in Sheslow Auditorium in Old Main, 26th Street and University Avenue. The speech will open the 1999 Drake Law School Constitutional Law Symposium, which will look at the events leading up to and following Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District. In that case, the parents of three students filed suit after the high schoolers were suspended for wearing black armbands in protest of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. In handing down its decision, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas said "that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."
Following the address, the public is invited to a reception for Strossen in Cartwright Hall, immediately across the street from Sheslow Auditorium. The reception is sponsored by the Historical Society of the U.S. Courts for the Southern District of Iowa and the Iowa Civil Liberties Union.
The symposium, which is endowed by the Des Moines law firm of Belin Lamson McCormick, Zumbach, continues on Saturday, Oct. 9, as speakers and commentators from across the nation participate in presentations and panel discussions analyzing the law and policies that have emerged since Tinker. Joining Strossen will be nationally known constitutionalists Akhil Reed Amar from Yale Law School and Erwin Chemerinsky from the University of Southern California; Kay S. Hymowitz, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of the forthcoming book, "Ready or Not: How Treating Children as Small Adults Endangers Their Future -- and Ours"; John Johnson, a history professor from the University of Northern Iowa and author of "The Struggle for Student Rights Tinker v. Des Moines;" and Dan L. Johnston, the attorney who represented the students in the Tinker case.
The issue of student rights is of particular importance in light of the shootings in recent years that have occurred in schools across the nation. These tragedies have forced parents, school administrators and civil rights watchdogs to search for policies that strike a balance between keeping students safe and protecting their First Amendment rights.
This is not easy to do, especially since the shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., last spring. Since then, ACLU offices all over the country, including Iowa, have reported hundreds of calls from students and parents concerned about potential violations of student rights. One student was suspended for 10 days for posting a personal Web page that was critical of his school and his town. Another was expelled because he said that he enjoyed watching things explode. Students in a nearby Colorado high school were not allowed to wear ribbons during graduation ceremonies to show respect for the families of the Columbine victims. A student in Virginia was suspended for having blue hair.
"What we've noticed is that strong reactions and harsh penalties have been imposed on infractions that are not very serious except that they occurred after Columbine," said Ben Stone, executive director of the Iowa Civil Liberties Union.
To date, no lawsuits have been filed by the ICLU, although calls from concerned parents and students have increased threefold since Columbine, according to Stone. He says it's important that administrators not pander to parental fear. "Everyone wants safe schools. What we need are deliberative and thoughtful decisions; not emotional ones. Overreactions create distrust and animosity among students, which is counterproductive to what we're trying to accomplish."
Current and former members of the ICLU's board of directors, along with the Quill and Scroll International Honorary Society for High School Journalists, have funded fellowships to allow area students and teachers to attend the symposium.
In addition to her ACLU post, Strossen is a professor of law at New York Law School. She has written, lectured and practiced extensively in the areas of constitutional law, civil liberties and international human rights. The National Law Journal has twice named her one of the 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America. Her book, "Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women's Rights," was named by the New York Times as a notable book of 1995. Her co-authored book, "Speaking of Race, Speaking of Sex: Hate Speech, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties," was named an outstanding book by the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in North America. Strossen received her undergraduate degree from Harvard College and her law degree from Harvard University.
In commemoration of the bicentennial of the Constitution in 1987, Congress established a permanent endowment at Drake Law School "to encourage graduate study of the American Constitution, its roots, its formation, its principles and its development." As a result, the Law School established the James Madison Chair in Constitutional Law, held by Thomas E. Baker, law professor and director of the Constitutional Law Center.
There is a registration fee to attend the Saturday events. For more information, call (515) 271-3354.