<P> Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969), was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court that defined 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 . </P> <P> In 1965, Des Moines, Iowa residents John F. Tinker (15 years old), his siblings Mary Beth Tinker (13 years old), Hope Tinker (11 years old), and Paul Tinker (8 years old), along with their friend Christopher Eckhardt (16 years old) decided to wear black armbands to their schools (high school for John and Christopher, junior high for Mary Beth, elementary school for Hope and Paul) in protest of the Vietnam War and supporting the Christmas Truce called for by Senator Robert F. Kennedy . The principals of the Des Moines schools learned of the plan and met on December 14 to create a policy that stated that school children wearing an armband would be asked to remove it immediately . Students violating the policy would be suspended and allowed to return to school after agreeing to comply with it . The participants decided to violate this policy . Mary Beth Tinker and Christopher Eckhardt were suspended from school for wearing the armbands on December 16 and John Tinker was suspended for doing the same on the following day . (The two youngest participants were not punished .) Mary Beth, Christopher, and John were suspended from school until after January 1, 1966, when their protest had been scheduled to end . </P> <P> A suit was filed after the Iowa Civil Liberties Union approached the Tinker family and the ACLU agreed to help with the lawsuit . The children's fathers filed suit in the U.S. District Court, which upheld the decision of the Des Moines school board . A tie vote in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit meant that the U.S. District Court's decision continued to stand, and forced the Tinkers and Eckhardts to appeal to the Supreme Court directly . The case was argued before the court on November 12, 1968 . </P> <P> The case was funded by Des Moines residents Louise Noun, then the president of the Iowa Civil Liberties Union, and her brother, Joseph Rosenfield, a businessman . </P>

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