American Civil Liberties Union

I have zero tolerance for schools that punish students for exercising their First Amendment rights. Students like Wesley Teague, who joked about his school's athletic department and Kyron Birdine, who was suspended for mocking standardized tests, did nothing more than exercise their right to freedom of expression. Free speech is a right that students need to understand, expect, and use responsibly. Because expressing yourself isn't always the popular thing to do, I'm going on a "Tinker Tour" to encourage students to know the First Amendment and to hear how they're using it in their lives.

At age four, my family moved for "better" schools from Detroit to a suburb just north of 18 Mile Road. Remember the movie 8 Mile, the story of Eminem's emergence from Detroit's suburban borderline? 18 mile road is 10 miles north, but 100 times whiter. With very few nonwhites, school was not a model of diversity or mutual respect. Here was Jeanette, the only Black girl, who squirmed in her seat during the lesson on slavery, not due to the topic but (I believe) because she felt like a spectacle. There was Frank, from a Vietnamese background, whom cruel (and ignorant) children occasionally called "Chink." I remember Rupert, valedictorian, a terrific athlete, and a wit, but known often as the "Indian kid" (if not by a Middle Eastern epithet). We white children lived blind to our own privilege.

Earlier this week, in a case brought by the ACLU, the ACLU of Arizona, and the Center for Reproductive Rights, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9^th Circuit struck down an extreme Arizona law that bans abortion care starting at 20 weeks. The court called it "per se unconstitutional." That's judicial-speak for "are you kidding me with this?"

And yet today, the U.S. House of Representatives held a hearing on a bill from Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) that would do the very same thing—except this one wouldn't be limited to Franks' home state of Arizona. Initially, Franks targeted the women of D.C., but has since announced his intention to expand his scope nationwide.

After model student Kiera Wilmot was arrested and removed from her high school for doing a science experiment on school property...