I am not a lawyer, so for legal advice you should consult one and not me. Educators need to know about these issues, however, and so do students. The facts and resources discussed here may surprise you. If you use them, they're almost certain to empower you!

On February 14, 2007, I participated as one of three panelists in an Oklahoma Title I statewide videoconference focused on addressing issues of cyberbullying. Tools are not inherently evil, but unfortunately people continue to make poor choices with many of those tools, which include digital ones. In this session I explored some of the proactive ways schools, churches, families and community organizations can address cyberbullying and the real dangers which are present in the online environment. While we should not minimize the real dangers which exist in the virtual as well as face-to-face worlds, we also should not perceive the Internet as inherently evil and digital technologies as entirely unsafe and undesirable. We need to help students develop their capacities for ethical decisionmaking, and proactively work to insure our classrooms, our neighborhoods, our homes and our communities are places of mutual respect where bullying behavior is not tolerated and is appropriately addressed, both responsively and proactively, by a variety of constituents.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued November 12, 1968 Decided February 24, 1969
Full case name: John F. Tinker and Mary Beth Tinker, minors, by their father and next friend, Leonard Tinker and Christopher Eckhardt, minor, by his father and next friend, William Eckhardt v. The Des Moines Independent Community School District, et al. Citations: 393 U.S. 503; 89 S. Ct. 733; 21 L. Ed. 2d 731; 1969 U.S. LEXIS 2443; 49 Ohio Op. 2d 222 Prior history: Plaintiff's complaint dismissed, 258 F.Supp. 971 (S.D. Iowa 1966); affirmed, 383 F.2d 988 (8th Cir. 1967); certiorari granted, 390 U.S. 942 (1968) Subsequent history: None on record
Holding
The First Amendment, as applied through the Fourteenth, did not permit a public school to punish a student for wearing a black armband as an anti-war protest, absent any evidence that the rule was necessary to avoid substantial interference with school discipline or the rights of others. Eighth Circuit reversed and remanded.
Court membership
Chief Justice: Earl Warren Associate Justices: Hugo Black, William O. Douglas, John Marshall Harlan II, William J. Brennan, Potter Stewart, Byron White, Abe Fortas, Thurgood Marshall
Case opinions
Majority by: Fortas Joined by: Warren, Douglas, Brennan, White, Marshall Concurrence by: Stewart Concurrence by: White Dissent by: Black Dissent by: Harlan
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amends. I, XIV; 42 U.S.C. § 1983

Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969) was a United States Supreme Court case that resulted in a decision defining the constitutional rights of students in U.S. public schools. The Tinker test is still used by courts today to determine whether a school's disciplinary actions violate students' First Amendment rights.