<P> Previous decisions, such as West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, had established that students did have some constitutional protections in public school . This case was the first time that the court set forth standards for safeguarding public school students' free speech rights . This case involved symbolic speech, which was first recognized in Stromberg v. California . </P> <Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> Wikisource has original text related to this article: Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> Wikisource has original text related to this article: Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District </Td> </Tr> <P> The court's 7--2 decision held that the First Amendment applied to public schools, and that administrators would have to demonstrate constitutionally valid reasons for any specific regulation of speech in the classroom . The court observed, "It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate ." Justice Abe Fortas wrote the majority opinion, holding that the speech regulation at issue in Tinker was "based upon an urgent wish to avoid the controversy which might result from the expression, even by the silent symbol of armbands, of opposition to this Nation's part in the conflagration in Vietnam ." The Court held that for school officials to justify censoring speech, they "must be able to show that (their) action was caused by something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint," that the conduct that would "materially and substantially interfere with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school ." The Court found that the actions of the Tinkers in wearing armbands did not cause disruption and held that their activity represented constitutionally protected symbolic speech . </P>

Who was president during tinker v des moines