Discarding Dariano: The Heckler's Veto and a New School Speech Doctrine

Abstract

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389 I. THE HECKLER’S VETO: PAST AND PRESENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392 A. The Development and Evolution of the Heckler’s Veto Doctrine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393 1. The Heckler’s Veto in the Civil Rights Era . . . . . . 394 2. Further Development and Expansion . . . . . . . . . . . . 396 B. The Heckler’s Veto in Public Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398 II. THE SCHOOL SPEECH DOCTRINE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402 A. Tinker and the Substantial Disruption Test . . . . . . . . . . 402 B. Bethel and Kuhlmeier: Adding More Prongs to Tinker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404 C. Morse and the Uncertainty of the Present Doctrine . . 405 III. DARIANO V. MORGAN HILL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407 A. The Majority Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407 B. The Dissent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409 C. The Circuit Split . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409 IV. TOWARDS A MORE WORKABLE SCHOOL SPEECH DOCTRINE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412 A. The Supreme Court Should Overturn the Ninth Circuit’s Decision in Dariano . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412 B. The Court Should Reaffirm Student Speech Rights and Reform Their School Speech Jurisprudence . . . . . . 414 CONCLUSION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416