Week four in my new journalism class. Well I guess it wouldn’t be considered new. But that isn’t the point of this post.

The point of this post, is to discuss what I have learned this week. Which basically revolves around four different court cases.

The first one, Tinker vs. Moines, was an attempt to protest the Vietnam war, but when the school caught wind of it, they quickly blew out the flames.

The supreme court took the case up, and proved that the high school students had a right to express their beliefs on the Vietnam war. Good or bad.

The second court case, Bethel vs. Fraser, basically dealt with a high school student who gave a speech, filled with sexual innuendos. Which was later proved that Mathew Fraser, the student who gave the speech, had no right to do such a thing, since he was at a school function.

But the point I am trying to prove here, is a fact of matter that one of my friends brought up.

When we were discussing the case, she rudely interrupted me and pointed out the fact that the supreme court didn’t take "silly cases like that."

The first part that was wrong with her argument, is that the supreme courts DID take the case. Not, they were thinking about, or no, they took the case!

The second question, after I rendered speechless, was why the supreme court would take the case?

I believe it was because of the fact that school speeches or newspapers were not regulated before hand. So once Mathew Fraser brought about his double meaning speech, it brought about the beginning of censorship.

This case was ethically wrong, since some people aren’t exposed to the amount of sexual meaning, like Mathew Fraser was.

But besides the Bethel vs. Fraser case, the Hazelwood vs. Kuhlmier, was the final tipping point, where schools could veto certain articles in a newspaper, based on a few words written by a high school student.

Administrators' were now given the right to view before publication, and limited our freedom of expression.

This all led to a question asked in class. How can you limit expression?

My answer, is that you cant. Unless you clip the vocal cords of everyone, the you can never limit expression. People have the right to say and do whatever they want, as long as it stays in line with the law. But how do you decide what is right and wrong?