Re: Student Free Speech and the First Amendment This paper will outline the legal authority of a school district to review in advance and regulate the content of a speech given by a student in a school- sponsored assembly or graduation event. First Amendment Free Speech rights are available to teachers and students. “It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional right to freedom of speech at the schoolhouse gate.” Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Sch. Dist. 393 U.S. 503, 606 (1969) Although public school students enjoy free speech rights, the Supreme Court has recognized that, “the constitutional rights of students in public schools are not automatically coextensive with the rights of adults in other settings .” Bethel Sch. Dist. No. 403 v. Frazer, 478 U.S. 675, 682 (1986) Speech is not limited to verbal communication. Speech may also be written or symbolic. Symbolic speech is action intended to convey a message (such as dance, painted artwork, or an item of clothing. If it is a symbolic act, it may qualify as protected speech. The leading example of protected symbolic speech is Tinker. In Tinker, a group of students who wore black armbands to school to protest the U.S. military involvement Vietnam were suspended. The U.S. Supreme Court held that the school district’s policy of banning the wearing of armbands violated the students’ free speech rights because there were no facts which might reasonably have led the school district to forecast substantial disruption or material interference with school activities. It is well established that a student’s right to freedom of speech is not unlimited. There are several bases upon which a public school can prohibit or discipline student speech. (1) Content Restrictions. The extent to which schools can restrict the content of a person’s speech depends on the type of forum involved: Open forum : a public place traditionally used as a place of public discourse, e.g., a speakers’ corner, public sidewalks and streets; 1