December 16, 1965
High school students in Des Moines, Iowa, were suspended for wearing black armbands to “mourn the deaths on both sides” and in support of Robert Kennedy’s call for a Christmas truce. The students sued the Des Moines School District, resulting in the 1969 U.S. Supreme Court decision in favor of the students, Tinker v. Des Moines. 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.”
