John Tinker pledges support for pro-anarchy teen
By The Associated Press
12.04.01
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A former Sissonville High School student suspended in October for her anti-war, pro-anarchy stances has gained the support of a Vietnam War protester whose famous Supreme Court case helped protect students' rights.
John Tinker made headlines after he wore a black armband at North High School in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1965 when an overwhelming majority of Americans supported the war effort in Vietnam.
Four years later, the Supreme Court ruled in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District that Iowa school administrators should not have prohibited Tinker and other students from wearing armbands to school because they didn't cause widespread disruptions.
The Tinker case became a landmark decision in the history of freedom of expression in America, said John Johnson, a Northern Iowa University professor who wrote a book called The Struggle for Student Rights: Tinker v. Des Moines and the 1960s.
"It wasn't a popular position at the time, but it was a position that had a right to be heard," Johnson said in an interview last week.
About 35 years later in West Virginia, Katie Sierra's lawyer argued that the Supreme Court's ruling in Tinker gave the 15-year-old the right to wear anti-war T-shirts to Sissonville High School.
The school board's attorney, however, called Sierra's T-shirts "walking billboards" — she had scrawled numerous messages on them — and a "far cry" from the black armbands Tinker wore.
Sierra lost round one in her court battle. A circuit judge prohibited her from wearing her shirts opposing America's bombing of Afghanistan.
But the next day, she ripped apart some black cloth she found at home and trotted into Sissonville High wearing a black armband.
A week later, she received e-mail from John Tinker. He's 51 now and a computer systems analyst living in a former elementary school in Missouri. He told her not to back down, to stand up for her beliefs and not to lose faith.
Tinker has pledged to come to Charleston, if need be, to show his support. They continue to correspond by e-mail.
"He said he'd be in the front row of the courtroom," Sierra said.
Sierra, meanwhile, has faced a barrage of insults. Students elbowed her and shoved her into her locker, she said. They spit on her mother's car. They shouted "freak" at her. They chanted "USA! USA!"
Sierra said she never intended to disrupt school. She said she wasn't seeking attention.
But with her T-shirts came a request to start an anarchy club. During a school board meeting in October, Sierra read a dictionary definition of anarchy, which included the word "terrorism."
In court documents, school officials acknowledged they couldn't ensure Sierra's safety, short of putting her in "lock-down." They said Sierra's actions had disrupted learning at Sissonville High.
Last week, West Virginia's Supreme Court refused to intervene in the case.
Sierra's mother, meanwhile, has pulled her from the school out of fear for her safety.
Sierra has enrolled in a program in which she stays at home and completes class work on a computer.
"This girl needs immediate relief," said Dan Johnston, a lawyer who represented Tinker and other Iowa students during the 1960s. "She's a victim. It's important to get her back into school.
"The school board has it backward. If they can't control their schools, then they need new school officials."
In Tinker, Johnston successfully argued that Iowa school officials had a double standard.
They allowed high school students to wear buttons endorsing political candidates. They also permitted them to wear the German Iron Cross. But they banned black armbands.
At Sissonville High, students have pinned red, white and blue ribbons to their shirts since the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. They have waved small American flags at school assemblies. They have worn shirts opposing Osama bin Laden.
But school officials wouldn't allow Sierra to criticize the American government or express her statements for peace. "You can't allow one kind of speech and not allow others," said Johnston, now a lawyer in New York.
It doesn't make a difference, he said, that Tinker's armbands were "symbolic speech" and Sierra's T-shirts spouted written messages. "If the purpose is to convey a message, then it's speech," he said.
Tinker said Sissonville administrators kicked Sierra out of school because they didn't like her views. That's wrong, he said.
"It's the issue of the importance of protecting the unpopular view," Tinker said. "That's what makes the First Amendment what it is. Otherwise it would just be meaningless."