Your angry dissent from the majority opinion of seven Justices of the Supreme Court about the right of my children, and all American children, to peacefully express their conscience in American public schools prompts me to write to you. Perhaps if you get somewhat acquainted with me through this letter, the wide gap between us may be bridged. As a Quaker, I am deeply concerned about this lack of communication between you and people such as my children and my husband and myself.
You see, while I was growing up and as I have been involved with the raising of six American children, you have been on the Supreme Court bench, an example to me of the fact that somewhere in our nation's capitol reason has power. I have not been very hopeful about the extent of this power, but that it is allowed at all for reasoning men to use to protect American citizens has been an awesome and highly respected value for me. Your own decisions through years of turmoil for our country have also been indications to me that reasoning men do indeed occupy the Bench.
As I read your angry words, often even "emotion charged", I felt embarrassed for you, as three years ago I felt embarrassed for the chairman of the Des Moines School Board, and their lawyerw, [Alan] Herrick, as they had uttered similar words, personally vindicative and insinuative about members of my family and that of Chris Eckhardt. When a person is known only for his reputation as a man of wisdom and of reason, it is hard for me to see him through a frame of reference which includes prejudice and other results of negative emotions. And utter frustration as to how to communicate across such rugged barriers is added to my chagrin at seeing him thus stripped of his more humane attributes.
You quoted directly from the School Board brief, which contained some important errors. For instance, you said, "There was also evidence that the professor of mathematics had his lesson period practically 'wrecked' chiefly by disputes with [Mary] Beth Tinker, who wore her armband for her 'demonstration'. Mr. Moberly, the teacher of 8th grade mathematics at Warren Harding Junior High School, used almost the entire class period the day before Mary Beth wore the black arm band, to discuss black arm bands, because he, like other Des Moines readers of the Register, had read on the front page that morning the story about the Des Moines Secondary Principals' decision to ban from school any students who mighty wear them on the next day, Thursday, December 16. Mary Beth had not worn a black band to class on the day Mr. Moberly "had his lesson period practically 'wrecked'; and if it was wrecked, Mr. Moberly himself was responsible. However, this not to criticize Mr. Moberley' method of teaching mathematics. We have had five of our six children to be his students, and he often gets off the subject of mathematics to talk about his views views on various subjects. He keeps high interest on the part of his students, because they never know just what the subject will be for the day. He seems to teach them at least and adequate amount of math also. He threatened that if any of his students wore a black arm band on Thursday, he would instantly carry out the orders of the Principals. My own feeling has been that he, more than any other person, probably stimuylated Mary Beth to wear the black arm band.
What happened when she got to school with a black arm band Thursday morning? Well, as the court record for the case in Judge Roy Stephenson's Federal District Court, Des Moines, Iowa, July 25, 1966, records our daughter's testimony, she went to Chorus, where no mention was made by either herself or anyone else about the arm band. She then went to Home Room, where her desk is near that of the teacher's. No student nor the teacher mentioned it. Mrs. Kethelhoff was the teacher. Then she went to Science, taught by Mr. Figorolo. He said nothing and except for the girl sitting next to her, who asked why she wore it, noone mentioned it. Then she went to Homemaking, taught by Mrs. Bell. Mrs. Bell did not say anything about the arm band, but several of the girls at the homaking table with Beth mentioned it. Beth, in her testimony, answered that it is usual to talk at that part of the class period, that all students talk until they begin their morning's project. She said that several friends said she had better take it off or else she would get in trouble, that after the class work started, no further attention was expressed about it. Then she went to History, taught by Mrs. Dickinson, who did not mention it. Then to English, taught by Mrs. Corrie, who did not mention it. Students in each class, history and English, suggested she had better take it off or else she would get in trouble, but this did not distract the class session.\but this did not distract the class session. Actually, if the Principals' statement had not appeared in the morning paper, and announced on radio and T.V. before school Wednesday morning, even these comments of the students would not have been triggered.
She testified, in asnwer to questions, that she was on time for each of her classes throughout the morning. Her lunch period was 11:07, in the Cafeteria. Here again, students warned her in a friendly way that she had better take it off. One boy said he wanted one for Christmas, but didn't think he would get one. Her lunch period proceeded in a normal way, and then she went back to second half of English class. Again, mention was made of the Arm Band, and no interruption of the regular class session occurred. At 1:00 p.m. she went to Mr. Moberley's math. class. She said in her testimony that the day before, "We spent the whole time speaking about demonstrations and arm bands. He said something about protests--that (protesteors) didn't have anything better to offer. If [students] demonstrate in his class, [they] would be kicked out. I asked about [wearing] arm band[s] and he said yes." She said that when she went to his class, he was standing at the back of the class. "He laid a pass to the office on my desk as he went by. It says where to to--to office.... The time was signed by Mr. Moberley." She said that when she got to the office, the vice-principal, Mr. Willotson, came in after she had waited 10 minutes, and asked her why she was there. "I said I was not sure, but thought it was because of the arm band. He asked if I would take it off. Idid. [I] Went back to math. 10 minutes later Mrs. Tarman came in. [She] Said I was wanted in the office." In the office, Mrs. Tarman, who had the arm band in her possession, said that she was sorry, but "she had to follow orders, (even though) she was sympathetic with my opinion. [She] Gave me a suspension thing. [It] Says suspended and [I] have to give [it] to [my] parents to sign to get back to school."
Yesterday, Hope Irene, our 14 year old girl, had a letter from a friend who is in Mr. Moberley's class. She said he was "tickled that Justice Black had referred to him as a Professor."
John also got through the next morning at North High School wearing the arm band, with only comments from other students, who warned him about trouble if he kept wearing it, because of the publicity given to possible wearing of the arm band by the School Principals, and the chairman of the School Board's statement in the Friday morning Register. Mr. Lorrie, English teacher, at beginning of his class, told John "they were waiting for me in the office". John called to his father first, and told him to pick him up because he supposed he would be asked to leave. "He (principal, Mr. Wetter) said something like: "I suppose you know I have to ask yout o take it off...I don't suppose you will?" I said, "No". HE said, 'I guess you know you can't wear it in school." The lawyer asked John if Mr. Wetter gave him a reason. John answered that Mr. Wetter mentioned the "hierarchy". "He said he was taking orders from higher up. He told me I'd have to leave the school but I was not to be suspended. He said this was pretty nice because it wouldn't go on [my] school record. He said I could return as soon as I'd take it off, or the school administrators made a different rule. He asked me [that for] his own personal reason [he] wanted to know why I wore it. He told me that he was in WW II. One statement [he made] I didn't kinow what he meant. [He] Said he supposed I'd call the newspaper. I told him that I didn't but that the school Board did." John then said that his father came into the school office, and had a discussion with Mr. Wetter about the matter before he and John left. I can speak only for my own two children who attended Des Moines schools in which the ban against arm bands was supposed to be enforced. Mary Beth, who actually removed her arm band when asked to do so, was suspended. John, who refused to remove his arm band, was not suspended, just "sent home". At neither school did any teacher or administrator give any reason for the removal of the arm band, except that the adult was "following orders". The girl's advisor, MRs. Tarman, when she talked with Mary Beth, and again as she talked on Friday morning with me and my husband, made it very clear that her suspension of Mary Beth was not her own decision: that indeed she felt sympathetic with Mary Beth, considered her one of the school's best young citizens, and knew that she was conscientiously acting according to her concer. She said that her job was important to her family, and that she dared not disobey orders handed down to her in "The System". Mr. Wetter, when John asked why he could not stay in school, also answered that he was "following orders" from the school hierarchy.
You mentioned that our youngest children, Paul and Hope, also wore arm bands to school. Paul was 8 at the time, and Hope was 11. Paul was in Cattell School, second grade, and Hope was in Madison School, 5th grade. There was no ban on arm bands in elementary schools. I don't remember which days the younger children wore their arm bands, but I think it was on Friday, Dec. 16, the same day that John wore his. Their father, when he saw them struggling to pin on cloth after breakfast, demanded to know why they were doing this. Hope said that "Just because I am only eleven years old does not mean that I do not grieve for those children being killed and hurt in Viet Nam." Paul said that he saw T.V. too, and pictures in the papers. They both said they wanted the War to stop. Their father did not want them to wear them. Hope Irene asked him if all his talk about believing in a democracy did not refer to her just because she was only eleven.
They went to school with arm bands, and met a very different situation than had the older children. At Paul's school, no one mentioned the arm band. At Hope's school, when one student started to say something derogatory to her, her teacher used the arm band as a demonstration of one of the great strengths of America; that each person could believe as he wished, so long as he did not violate another's rights One of her friends said to her as they left school, "Hope, you have a cause to believe in. I wish I had a cause!"
While we're on the subject of our children, perhaps our older two should be included also. Bonnie Jeanne was a freshman at Grinnell College. She plans to graduate this year from Grinnell. She also wore an arm band, and, in fact, has continued to wear one most of the time since. Edward was at Grandview College in Des Moines, and also wore an arm band during the holiday period of demonstration. He is now registered as a conscientious objector. Bonnie Jeanne, as well as the other children, not only wore arm bands, but joined the fast which continued for a few people on a continuous basis until June, 1966. (Someone was fasting at all times through most of this period.) Neither the arm bands nor the fast seemed to cause distraction for the college students. In fact, one fo the frustrations of concerned young people today is that American society, and its institutions as well as people are included, seems to respect only signs of violence. Peaceful demonstrations of concern for social evils do not get attention unless violence is injected. In the South, the bigots who killed and kicked and turned police dogs onto people triggered the news. In the North, violence by police to "keep law and order" gets press coverage. Now, as some of the young people, deeply frustrated in their striving for social justice, respond to defend themselves, those who have all along believed that violence, not peaceful witness to concern, have cried, "Aha! They are the violent ones! We must have law and order. So we must do away with them!"
We can expect defensive people to react with prejudice; to even behave in dangerous ways physically to those who trigger fear in them. Our family has accepted that Minutemen, Young Americans for Freedom, Birchers in the Des Moines area would viciously attack us as individuals verbally, spreading lies even to the present day through one nightly "Open End" FM radio program. We even accepted the threats against the lives of ourselves and our children as part of the price which must be paid to act responsibly as truly patriotic Americans who believe that when our country is wrong we have the obligation to help direct her to the right. But we did not expect you, Sir, to react with prejudice, nor with emotion charged words and innuendos. You represent to us the power of reason. We took our children to Washington November 12 in order to expose them to what we believe is one of the few hopes remaining to direct America toward the welfare of mankind. We sat in your beautiful Chamber. We watched with amusement and identity as you and other Justices rocked informally in those comfortable chairs while listening to the briefs before the Court. We were impressed with the ease of entering the Supreme Court hearings, compared to going most other places in Washington that day. (We never could get to the Kennedy graves, for instance, but kept coming back to the Memorial for the men at Iwo Jima. The inauguration platform was being built at the Capitol, so we could not get there, even to drive through the grounds. A sudden storm made the weather miserable. Only within the Supreme Court building did we find warmth along with the awe we took with us.
You said: "Their father, a Methodist minister without a church, is paid a salary by the American Friends' Service Committee." My husband, Leonard, has been appointed by his Methodist Bishop on special appointment as Peace Education Secretary of the North Central REgion of the American Friends Service Committee. For over 20 years he served Methodist local churches in New York, Illinois, and Iowa. Seventeen of our almost 24 years of marriage were spent living in Methodist parsonages in Illinois, and in Iowa. As he has said, "Along with John Wesley, I have a wider parish today--the company of the concerned across all social, economic, ethnic, racial, and religious lines."
You mentioned that Mrs. Eckhardt "is an official in the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom." You did not mention that I am a member, and one of the organizers of the Des Moines, Iowa branch of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Founded by Jane Adams and other concerned American women, the W.I.L.P.F. has had a long and honorable history of confronting the complacency of most Americanw with injustice in our society. A good friend of mine, I am proud to say, is the present executive officier of the W.I.L., Mrs. Glynna Johnson. I should hope that you can become acquainted with her and other women in this splendid organization--an organization which represents the highest concept of patriotism, in the American and world understanding of the term.
You also did not mention anything about Dr. Wm. Eckhardt, father of Chris. Bill is at present working as a research psychologist with the Canadian Peace Research Institute, Clarksville, Ontario, Canada. Along with many research articles in many journals, Dr. Eckhardt co-authored, "Factors of War-Peace Attitudes", published in Peace Research Reviews, October, 1967. He happens to believe that of the highest importance today is to research what factors are involved in men's attitudes which lead either to acceptance of war or of peaceful solutions to man's problems. He and I both belong to Division Nine of the American Psychological Association. This is SPSSSI. The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. It is the Division which sponsored the appearance of Dr. Martin Luther King at the Conference of the APA in Washington, D.D., September, 1967. Kenneth Clark, eminent psychologist, introduced Dr. King to the cheering 5,000 people who attended the meeting. Dr. Eckhardt started the Des Moines Peace Research Group in the early 1960's. I am proud to say that I joined this group of concerned scientists.
Now to my own conern with American education as an Assistant Professor at the University of Missouri at St. Louis (Normandy campus), I teach two courses in the Evening Division while trying this year to finish my dissertation for a Ph.D. at Iowa State University. One course is "The School and Contemporary Society". The other is "The Psychology of Elementary School Children." My own interest in the philosophy of education goes back many years. I was enrolled in a course in philosophy of education at Iowa State University at the time the children wore their arm bands. Indeed, I myself was wearing an arm band, and chose to go to my Iowa State University class the evening, Jan. 4, 1966, when the Des Moines School Board voted to uphold the principals' decision.
As a student who had previously taught 4 years in Grand View College and Drake University, Des Moines, I was dismayed by the method used by teachers of graduate students at Iowa State University. In Educational Psychology, all the new stimulating methods were presented, but when a question was asked about why not use some of these methods on the graduate level, then the response came through that it just was not appropriate. I was taught that to be a good student and be awarded with good grades, I must become a sponge and regurgitate at appropriate intervals. Later, I am happy to say, I experienced classes with men in the Department of Education who applied their knowledge of motivation and education to teach in highly creative ways. Several of these professors serve as models for my own teaching. I wrote several papers on the general subject of acacemic freedom. While reviewing literature for these papaers, I read of your own decisions over the years, some of them relevant to education.
My own children were growing up in a home which encouraged them to develop their thinking powers; which rewarded curiosity and concern. Always on standard achievement tests they scored in the very top category, so I knew they were learning up to academic standards of the schools. Often, though, grades from individual teachers would not reveal this high level of achievement, although my children have on the whole had excellent school records. In fact, I think that all three of the youth who were out of school were on that semester's honor roll in their respective schools, or very close to being on the honor roll. As Mrs. Tarman told us of Mary Beth, they were all good school citizens, and good students. But often I had the feeling that my children learned in spite of the kind of teaching that occurred in their classrooms; and in spite of attitudes of individual school teachers and administrators toward their political and ideological views. That John and Beth had many good friends at the time of the arm band wearing, among students and also faculty, would mena, I think, that their warm personalities, oriented toward love and the positive human values, provided opportunities for such relationships. Nothing was said in the School Board Brief about the reaction of teachers and students after they returned to classes. In one class, the teacher said, "John, we don't have T.V. cameras, but would you please tell the class what this was all about?' In another class, the entire class broke into spontaneous applause when he entered the room. Perhaps you would say that these incidents further argue that the arm band distracted from education. I would say they provided excellent opportunities for important education; the kind that develops responsible citizens of a democracy.
You were quoted in the Register as saying that "Iowa's public schools...are operated to give studenta an opportunity to learn, not to talk politics by actual speech, or by symbolic speech....And as I have pointed out before, the record amply shows that public protest in the school classes against the Vietnam war distracted from that singleness of purpose which the state (here Iowa) desired to exist in its public educational institutions."
As a parent and as an educator, I do not believe, from my 21 years of experience with Iowa schools, both as a parent who at the time of the ban belonged to four P.T.A.s, and as a student in a public institution for four years myself, that the above statement is true. First, the Des Moines Public Schools, according to a statement by Dr. Mitchum to my husband when Mary Beth was in 4th grade, had a policy (unwritten) to ban all comment on controversial topics such as peace and race which was not included in the wirtten curriculum. I know this because we and several other concerned parents went to the Superintendent's office at the time when our daughter's report on the atom bomb was not allowed because of this edict. She had prepared this paper all by herself, after her father had returned from a summer working with Methodist churches in Japan. The teacher first had told her she could present the speech, but had to check with the school office, whose staff forbid it. She was at Clarkson School at the time. (She was very creative--decided herself to give a speech on Hiroshima, which was allowed, because there was no ban on "Hiroshima".) Another indication of this ban being operative at the time of the wearing of the arm bands is the very way the Principals found out about the planned demonstration. The boys at Roosevelt High School who planned to have an editorial in the Roosevelt High paper about the demonstration were made to check with the school office because this editorial was under one of the "controversial subjects ban". Here, though, when the message got through to the downtown school office, the ban was quickly placed on the demonstration itself, not only the high school paper's editorial. Incidentally, the Principals' ban was issued without good faith with the students. On Tuesday, according to my record of the experience, the Principals had told the students that they would meeti with them Wednesday after school to discuss further the planned demonstration. But they issued their statement about a ban to the Des Moines Register in time for the Wednesday morning paper.
But while you fume now about the danger in the Court's decision to uphold the student's non-violent demonstration, the fabric of American society is disintegrating. As John said, when I called him last Monday night, "Mom, its too little, too late." Hope said to a reporter from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "You see, I was protesting against the killing--against the war, and I wanted it to stop. But finally, three years' later, a decision is made that it is alright to make the protest. I was not testing if I had freedom of speech. I was trying to do something about people being killed. People are still being killed. What good did it do?"
Ask yourself, Your Honor, what learning has taken place for Hope Irene and the other students who were 11 three years ago and now are 14, 8th graders? And for the high school students who were 15 at the time, as was John, and who are now 18, eligible to be part of the people killing and being killed? What is happening as Americans wake up daily to an almost geometric escalation in violence at home? What is happening as our nation's resources get drained into the corruption involved with escalation of military-industrial power in our nation? What, then, is happening to the essence of American democracy? Ask yourself what this means not only for American education but for the very fabric of American culture.
When you attribute motives, ask yourself if you were just accepting blindly the statement written in the School Board lawyer's brief. You said, "It was of course to distract the attention of other students that some students insisted up to the very point of their own suspension from school and they were determined to sit in school with their symbolic armbands." How can you, a man of immense wisdom, impugn motives to my children? How can you as a human being know why Mary Beth went to school wearing the arm band that day? Have you seen the picture Hope drew shortly before the demonstration, expressing her own agony about children being killed? Have you been with these children as they steadfastly refused to eat when their self-appointed schedule on the fast was due? Have you fondled the silky long hair of Hope Irene as she expressed her own concerns, or watched Paul lovingly hold a new baby kitten, and express his reverence for life? Have you worried at night because John searches for the good, with an excellent mind and a committed conscience? Have you received the death threats at 11:30 p.m., and wondered if this time just maybe one of the disturbed ones will carry it through? Have you watched Mary Beth walk into the front hall from school, after a day of praying that the lady who told her the night before that she would kill her this day would not carry out the threat?
Justice Black, our children--all of them without exception--have internalized the basic human values to which my husband and I long before they were bon had dedicated our own lives. If we were successful in teaching them concern for that which might keep humanity on the face of the earth, then we consider ourselves good teachers. If school teachers and administrators have joined us in this concern, in this level of excellence for education, we have been happy to recognize them as educators of our children. I am happy to say that expressions from many teachers, several school board members, including the Reverend Robert Keck and lawyer Art Davis, and several school administrators in Des Moines, indicated to us that the Principals' Ban was not unanimously accepted, although fear among teachers is so great in many of our public schools that few dared publicly to express their convictions, besides the two men of the school Board, whose own livelihood does not depend on the Des Moines School Board. What is happening to our schools as fear dominates the teachers and administrators? Ask yourself this question. What happens to a math teacher whose reaction to the Decision is happiness that someone, once, has referred to him as a professor? (This is what Mr. Moberly did in his present math class last week, according to one of his students.) What happens to children living in contemporary America who, when the local paper announced that the Supreme Court had heard the arm band case, did not have opportunity to discuss this case in their classes--even in history and social studies classes? What is the essence of distraction for education? Is it the injection of concern about vital human values? OR is it attention to atomistic presentation of academic trivae? How can math be taught today apart from theory of math, which is relevant to society's need to struggle with important questions such as the Des Moines-banned subjects of peace and math? And who teaches who? Cannot the student teach the teacher, provided the teacher is open to learn? Are responsible citizens of a democracy to be produced by the sponge-regurgitation method? As one of my professors said, "He who thinks he has all the answers hasn't asked all the questions."
No, Justice Black, you do not need to worry about the present decision, so far as it fomenting lack of education and further causing "groups of students all over the land (to) run loose, conduct break-ins, sit-ins, lie-ins, and smash-ins." You do need to worry, though, along with me and many thoughtful Americans, about a society and an educational system which respects violence more than non-violence; which values conformity more than individual expression of concern; which refuses to reward human-oriented, evaluative, thinking youth, but tries instead to indoctrinate them with an outdated love for violence. The Des Moines Schools, never, so far as I know, while my children were in school there over 11 years, refused to invite the Marine Recruiter who offered to entice youth into an honorable form of killing. What are our values, Justice Black? Does it not distract education to lead the student into professional murder? What about the many films put out by our Armed Services and industry which are shown almost daily in a large school system? How does the Industrial-Military-Complex get control of our youth who in turn become the firghtened administrators and teachers? Is not this a distraction to education?
The present decision, as I see it, along with John, is too little, too late. For three years America has gotten more hopelessly entangled in an immoral war, and has inadequate resources to cope with agony in our own cities. Children get inferior education all over our land, not just in Des Moines Iowa. We come up with silly statements about needing to "crack down" on the youth, not with the adults who feed on the agony. God help us all if the adults of our land, including Supreme Court Justices such as yourself, fail to face America's real moral problems soon enough.
I don't really understand how you had a happy birthday, as was reported in the Post-Dispatch. Given the total agony in the world, how can a thoughtful American celebrate the end of another year unless he is committed to justice into the new one?
Sincerely, Lorena Jeanne Tinker