Bethel School District v. Fraser
| Bethel School District v. Fraser | |
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| Argued March 3, 1986 Decided July 7, 1986 |
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| Full case name | Bethel School District No. 403 v. Matthew N. Fraser, a minor, et al. |
| Citations | 478 U.S. 675 (more)
106 S. Ct. 3159; 92 L. Ed. 2d 549; 1986 U.S. LEXIS 139; 54 U.S.L.W. 5054
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| Prior history | Judgment for plaintiff; affirmed, 755 F.2d 1356 (1985); certiorari granted, 474 U.S. 814 (1985) |
| Subsequent history | 89 |
| Holding | |
| The First Amendment, as applied through the Fourteenth, permits a public school to punish a student for giving a lewd and indecent, even if not obscene, speech at a school assembly. Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded | |
| Court membership | |
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| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Burger, joined by White, Powell, Rehnquist, O'Connor |
| Concurrence | Brennan |
| Concurrence | Blackmun |
| Dissent | Marshall |
| Dissent | Stevens |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. amends. I, XIV; 42 U.S.C. § 1983 | |
Bethel School District v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675 (1986), was a United States Supreme Court decision involving free speech in public schools. Matthew Fraser was suspended from school in the Bethel School District for making a speech including double entendres at a school assembly. The Supreme Court held that his suspension did not violate the First Amendment.
On April 26, 1983, Matthew Fraser, a Pierce County, Washington high school senior, gave a speech nominating classmate Jeff Kuhlman for Associated Student Body vice president. The speech was filled with sexual innuendos, 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. So please vote for Jeff Kuhlman, as he'll never come between us and the best our school can be. He is firm enough to give it everything.
After appealing through the grievance procedures of his school, he was still found to be in violation of several school policies against disruptive behavior and the use of vulgar and offensive speech. These grounds later evolved to include obscenity at trial, but obscenity, according to Fraser, was not listed as grounds for his punishment in his initial hearing with school vice-principal Christy Blair. Fraser was suspended from school for three days as a result, 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 second overall 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.
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