Parties: Bd. of Educ. v. Pico
Date: 1982-06-25
Identifiers:
Opinions:
Segment Sets:
Paragraph: 190 - Despite Justice BRENNAN's suggestion to the contrary, this Court has never held that the First Amendment grants junior high school and high school students a right of access to certain information in school. It is true that the Court has recognized a limited version of that right in other settings, and Justice BRENNAN quotes language from five such decisions and one of his own concurring opinions in order to demonstrate the viability of the right-to-receive doctrine. Ante, at 866-867. But not one of these cases concerned or even purported to discuss elementary or secondary educational institutions. Justice BRENNAN brushes over this significant omission in First Amendment law by citing Tinker v. Des Moines School District for the proposition that N178* students too are beneficiaries of this [right-to-receive] principle." Ante, at 868. But Tinker held no such thing. One may readTinker in vain to find any recognition of a First Amendment right to receive information. Tinker, as already mentioned, was based entirely on the students' right to express their political views.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: a right of access to certain
Search time: 2018-03-15 12:38:56 Searcher: clm6u Editor: ars9ef Segmenter: ars9ef
Paragraph: 193 - The idea that such students have a right of access, in the school, to information other than that thought by their educators to be necessary is contrary to the very nature of an inculcative education.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: a right of access
Search time: 2018-03-15 12:38:56 Searcher: clm6u Editor: ars9ef Segmenter: ars9ef
Paragraph: 36 - N179* First, the right to receive ideas follows ineluctably from the sender's First Amendment right to send them: "The right of freedom of speech and press . . . embraces the right to distribute literature, and necessarily protects the right to receive it." Martin v. Struthers, 319 U.S. 141, 143, 63 S.Ct. 862, 863, 87 L.Ed. 1313 (1943) (citation omitted). "The dissemination of ideas can accomplish nothing if otherwise willing addressees are not free to receive and consider them. It would be a barren marketplace of ideas that had only sellers and no buyers."
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: The right of freedom of speech
Search time: 2018-03-15 12:38:56 Searcher: clm6u Editor: ars9ef Segmenter: ars9ef
Paragraph: 36 - But we think that the First Amendment rights of students may be directly and sharply implicated by the removal of books from the shelves of a school library. Our precedents have focused N190* "not only on the role of the First Amendment in fostering individual self-expression but also on its role in affording the public access to discussion, debate, and the dissemination of information and ideas." First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765, 783, 98 S.Ct. 1407, 1419, 55 L.Ed.2d 707 (1978). And we have recognized that )N191* "the State may not, consistently with the spirit of the First Amendment, contract the spectrum of available knowledge." Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 482, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 1680, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965). In keeping with this principle, we have held that in a variety of contexts N192* "the Constitution protects the right to receive information and ideas."
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: the right to receive information and
Search time: 2018-01-12 14:48:12 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 36 - First, the right to receive ideas follows ineluctably from the sender's First Amendment right to send them: N193* "The right of freedom of speech and press . . . embraces the right to distribute literature, and necessarily protects the right to receive it."
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: the right to receive ideas follows
Search time: 2018-01-12 14:48:12 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 37 - the right to receive ideas is a necessary predicate to the recipient's meaningful exercise of his own rights of speech, press, and political freedom.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: the right to receive ideas is
Search time: 2018-01-12 14:48:12 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 43 - N194* "a student can literally explore the unknown, and discover areas of interest and thought not covered by the prescribed curriculum. . . . Th[e] student learns that a library is a place to test or expand upon ideas presented to him, in or out of the classroom."
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match:
Search time: 2018-01-12 14:48:12 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 63 - In my view, then, the principle involved here is both narrower and more basic than the "right to receive information" identified by the plurality. I do not suggest that the State has any affirmative obligation to provide students with information or ideas, something that may well be associated with a "right to receive." See post, at 887 (BURGER, C.J., dissenting); post, at 915-918 (REHNQUIST, J., dissenting). And I do not believe, as the plurality suggests, that the right at issue here is somehow associated with the peculiar nature of the school library, see ante, at 868-869; if schools may be used to inculcate ideas, surely libraries may play a role in that process. Instead, I suggest that certain forms of state discrimination between ideas are improper. In particular, our precedents command the conclusion that the State may not act to deny access to an idea simply because state officials disapprove of that idea for partisan or political reasons.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: the "right to receive information" identified
Search time: 2018-01-12 14:48:12 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 67 - And I believe that tying the First Amendment right to the purposeful suppression of ideas makes the concept more manageable than Justice REHNQUIST acknowledges. Most people would recognize that refusing to allow discussion of current events in Latin class is a policy designed to "inculcate" Latin, not to suppress ideas. Similarly, removing a learned treatise criticizing American foreign policy from an elementary school library because the students would not understand it is an action unrelated to the purpose of suppressing ideas.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: Amendment right to the
Search time: 2018-01-12 14:48:12 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 84 - The apparent underlying basis of the plurality's view seems to be that students have an enforceable "right" to receive the information and ideas that are contained in junior and senior high school library books. Ante, at 866. This "right" purportedly follows "ineluctably" from the sender's First Amendment right to freedom of speech and as a "necessary predicate" to the recipient's meaningful exercise of his own rights of speech, press, and political freedom. Ante, at 866-867. No such right, however, has previously been recognized.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: Amendment right to freedom of speech
Search time: 2018-01-12 14:48:12 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 86 - First, the plurality argues that the right to receive ideas is derived in part from the sender's First Amendment rights to send them. Yet we have previously held that a sender's rights are not absolute. Rowan v. Post Office Dept., 397 U.S. 728, 90 S.Ct. 1484, 25 L.Ed.2d 736 (1970). Never before today has the Court indicated that the government has an obligation to aid a speaker or author in reaching an audience.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: the right to receive ideas is
Search time: 2018-01-12 14:48:12 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 87 - Second, the plurality concludes that " the right to receive ideas is a necessary predicate to the recipient's meaningful exercise of his own rights of speech, press, and political freedom." Ante, at 867 (emphasis in original). However, the "right to receive information and ideas," Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557, 564, 89 S.Ct. 1243, 1247, 22 L.Ed.2d 542 (1969), cited ante, at 867, does not carry with it the concomitant right to have those ideas affirmatively provided at a particular place by the government. The plurality cites James Madison to emphasize the importance of having an informed citizenry. Ibid. We all agree with Madison, of course, that knowledge is necessary for effective government. Madison's view, however, does not establish a right to have particular books retained on the school library shelves if the school board decides that they are inappropriate or irrelevant to the school's mission.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: the right to receive ideas is
Search time: 2018-01-12 14:48:12 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 88 - The plurality also cites Tinker, supra, to establish that the recipient's right to free speech encompasses a right to have particular books retained on the school library shelf. Ante, at 868. But the cited passage of Tinker notes only that school officials may not prohibit a student from expressing his or her view on a subject unless that expression interferes with the legitimate operations of the school. The government does not "contract the spectrum of available knowledge." Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 482, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 1680, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965), cited ante, at 866, by choosing not to retain certain books on the school library shelf; it simply chooses not to be the conduit for that particular information. In short, even assuming the desirability of the policy expressed by the plurality, there is not a hint in the First Amendment, or in any holding of this Court, of a "right" to have the government provide continuing access to certain books.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: s right to free speech encompasses
Search time: 2018-01-12 14:48:12 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 188 - It is the very existence of a right to receive information, in the junior high school and high school setting, which I find wholly unsupported by our past decisions and inconsistent with the necessarily selective process of elementary and secondary education.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: a right to receive information, in
Search time: 2018-01-12 14:48:12 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 189 - The right described by Justice BRENNAN has never been recognized in the decisions of this Court and is not supported by their rationale. Justice BRENNAN correctly observes that students do not N195* "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate." Tinker v. Des Moines School District, 393 U.S. 503, 506, 89 S.Ct. 733, 736, 21 L.Ed.2d 731 (1969). But, as this language from Tinker suggests, our past decisions in this area have concerned freedom of speech and expression, not the right of access to particular ideas. We have held that students may not be prevented from symbolically expressing their political views by the wearing of black arm bands, Tinker v. Des Moines School District, supra, and that they may not be forced to participate in the symbolic expression of saluting the flag, West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 63 S.Ct. 1178, 87 L.Ed. 1628 (1943). But these decisions scarcely control the case before us. Neither the District Court nor the Court of Appeals found that petitioners' removal of books from the school libraries infringed respondents' right to speak or otherwise express themselves.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: respondents' right to speak or otherwise
Search time: 2018-01-12 14:48:12 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 190 - Despite Justice BRENNAN's suggestion to the contrary, this Court has never held that the First Amendment grants junior high school and high school students a right of access to certain information in school. It is true that the Court has recognized a limited version of that right in other settings, and Justice BRENNAN quotes language from five such decisions and one of his own concurring opinions in order to demonstrate the viability of the right-to-receive doctrine. Ante, at 866-867. But not one of these cases concerned or even purported to discuss elementary or secondary educational institutions. Justice BRENNAN brushes over this significant omission in First Amendment law by citing Tinker v. Des Moines School District for the proposition that "students too are beneficiaries of this [right-to-receive] principle." Ante, at 868. But Tinker held no such thing. One may readTinker in vain to find any recognition of a First Amendment right to receive information. Tinker, as already mentioned, was based entirely on the students' right to express their political views.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: Amendment right to receive information
Search time: 2018-01-12 14:48:12 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 191 - Justice BRENNAN correctly characterizes the right of access to ideas as "an inherent corollary of the rights of free speech and press" which "follows ineluctably from the sender's First Amendment right to send them." Ante, at 867 (emphasis in original). But he then fails to recognize the predicate right to speak from which the students' right to receive must follow. It would be ludicrous, of course, to contend that all authors have a constitutional right to have their books placed in junior high school and high school libraries. And yet without such a right our prior precedents would not recognize the reciprocal right to receive information. Justice BRENNAN disregards this inconsistency with our prior cases and fails to explain the constitutional or logical underpinnings of a right to hear ideas in a place where no speaker has the right to express them.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: Amendment right to send them
Search time: 2018-01-12 14:48:12 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 192 - Justice BRENNAN also correctly notes that the reciprocal nature of the right to receive information derives from the fact that it "is a necessary predicate to the recipient's meaningful exercise of his own rights of speech, press, and political freedom." Ibid. (emphasis in original). But the denial of access to ideas inhibits one's own acquisition of knowledge only when that denial is relatively complete. If the denied ideas are readily available from the same source in other accessible locations, the benefits to be gained from exposure to those ideas have not been foreclosed by the State. This fact is inherent in the right-to-receive cases relied on by Justice BRENNAN, every one of which concerned the complete denial of access to the ideas sought.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: the right to receive information derives
Search time: 2018-01-12 14:48:12 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 196 - Thus, Justice BRENNAN cannot rely upon the nature of school libraries to escape the fact that the First Amendment right to receive information simply has no application to the one public institution which, by its very nature, is a place for the selective conveyance of ideas.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: Amendment right to receive information simply
Search time: 2018-01-12 14:48:12 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 197 - After all else is said, however, the most obvious reason that petitioners' removal of the books did not violate respondents' right to receive information is the ready availability of the books elsewhere. Students are not denied books by their removal from a school library. The books may be borrowed from a public library, read at a university library, purchased at a bookstore, or loaned by a friend. The government as educator does not seek to reach beyond the confines of the school. Indeed, following the removal from the school library of the books at issue in this case, the local public library put all nine books on display for public inspection. Their contents were fully accessible to any inquisitive student.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: respondents' right to receive information is
Search time: 2018-01-12 14:48:12 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 200 - The justification for this limiting distinction is said by Justice BRENNAN to be his concern in this case with "the suppression of ideas." Ante, at 871. Whatever may be the analytical usefulness of this appealing sounding phrase, see Part II-D, infra, the suppression of ideas surely is not the identical twin of the denial of access to information. Not every official act which denies access to an idea can be characterized as a suppression of the idea. Thus unless the "right to receive information" and the prohibition against "suppression of ideas" are each a kind of Mother-Hubbard catch phrase for whatever First Amendment doctrines one wishes to cover, they would not appear to be interchangeable.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: the "right to receive information" and
Search time: 2018-01-12 14:48:12 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 33 - Similarly, Tinker v. Des Moines School Dist., supra, held that students' rights to freedom of expression of their political views could not be abridged by reliance upon anN2* "undifferentiated fear or apprehension of disturbance" arising from such expression:
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: could not be abridged by reliance upon an
Search time: 2018-03-15 11:58:04 Searcher: clm6u Editor: tcs9pk Segmenter: tcs9pk
Paragraph: 33 - Similarly, Tinker v. Des Moines School Dist., supra, held that students' rights to freedom of expression of their political views could not be abridged by reliance upon an N5* "undifferentiated fear or apprehension of disturbance" arising from such expression:
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: political views could not be abridged by reliance upon
Search time: 2018-03-15 11:53:17 Searcher: clm6u Editor: ars9ef Segmenter: ars9ef
Paragraph: 33 - Similarly, Tinker v. Des Moines School Dist., supra, held that students' rights to freedom of expression of their political views could not be abridged by reliance upon an N6* "undifferentiated fear or apprehension of disturbance" arising from such expression
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match:
Search time: 2018-04-02 15:38:12 Searcher: clm6u Editor: tcs9pk Segmenter: tcs9pk
Paragraph: 41 - In sum, just as access to ideas makes it possible for citizens generally to exercise their rights of free speech and press in a meaningful manner, such access prepares students for active and effective participation in the pluralistic, often contentious society in which they will soon be adult members.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: of free speech and press in
Search time: 2017-11-10 14:59:38 Searcher: clm6u Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 88 - The government does not N83* "contract the spectrum of available knowledge" Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 482, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 1680, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965), cited ante, at 866, by choosing not to retain certain books on the school library shelf; it simply chooses not to be the conduit for that particular information. In short, even assuming the desirability of the policy expressed by the plurality, there is not a hint in the First Amendment, or in any holding of this Court, of a "right" to have the government provide continuing access to certain books.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match:
Search time: 2017-11-10 14:59:38 Searcher: clm6u Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk