Bethel School District v. Fraser
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| Bethel School District v. Fraser | ||||||||||||
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 Supreme Court of the United States |
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| Argued March 3, 1986 Decided July 7, 1986 |
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| Holding | ||||||||||||
| The First Amendment, as applied through the Fourteenth, permits a public school to punish a student for giving a lewd and indecent, but not obscene, speech at a school assembly. Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded. | ||||||||||||
| Court membership | ||||||||||||
| Chief Justice: Warren E. Burger Associate Justices: William J. Brennan, Byron White, Thurgood Marshall, Harry Blackmun, Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr., William Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor |
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| Case opinions | ||||||||||||
| Majority by: Burger Joined by: White, Powell, Rehnquist, O'Connor Concurrence by: Brennan Concurrence by: Blackmun Dissent by: Marshall Dissent by: Stevens |
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| Laws applied | ||||||||||||
| U.S. Const. amends. I, XIV; | ||||||||||||
Bethel School District v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675 (1986), was a United States Supreme Court decision involving free speech and public schools.
On April 26, 1983, Matthew Fraser, a Spanaway, Washington, high school senior, gave a speech nominating classmate Jeff Kuhlman for Associated Student Body Vice President. The speech was filled with sexual innuendo, but not obscenity, prompting disciplinary action from the administration.
Fraser's speech was as follows:
"I know a man who is firm - he's firm in his pants, he's firm in his shirt, his character is firm - but most [of] all, his belief in you the students of Bethel, is firm. Jeff Kuhlman is a man who takes his point and pounds it in. If necessary, he'll take an issue and nail it to the wall. He doesn't attack things in spurts - he drives hard, pushing and pushing until finally - he succeeds. Jeff is a man who will go to the very end - even the climax, for each and every one of you."
After appealing the decision through the grievance procedures of his school, he was still found to be in violation of a school policy prohibiting obscene language. Fraser was suspended from school for three days as a result, and was prohibited from speaking at his graduation ceremony, and his name was stricken from the ballot used to elect three graduation speakers. Fraser nonetheless was selected by a write-in vote which placed him among the top three finishers, although Bethel High School administrators refused to accept the write-in vote as a valid result, and continued to deny Fraser the opportunity to speak at graduation.
With approval from his parents and help from ACLU coperating attorney Jeff Haley, Matt Fraser filed a lawsuit against the school authorities claiming a violation of his First Amendment right to free speech, and the United States District Court, Honorable Jack Tanner, ruled in his favor.
The school district then appealed to the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals which ruled in his favor with a broadly worded opinion. The school district asked the United States Supreme Court to consider the case and it agreed to do so. The US Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals in 7-2 vote to uphold the suspension, saying that the school district's policy did not violate the First Amendment. Chief Justice Warren Burger delivered the Court's opinion. Justices William J. Brennan and Harry Blackmun delivered concurring opinions, while Thurgood Marshall and John Paul Stevens dissented.
This has been cited as a partial reversal of the precedent established in 1969 Tinker v. Des Moines; though the Court distinguished Tinker, the ruling can be seen as at least limiting it.
Matthew Fraser is currently the program director and a coach of debate at Stanford University, the Executive Director of Education Unlimited (a California based educational services company), and a high school debate coach.
