Free-Speech Pioneer Mary Beth Tinker to Visit UA

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Nearly 50 years ago, Mary Beth Tinker was sent home from her middle school for daring to speak out. Now she is speaking by invitation nationwide at schools and universities, including The University of Alabama.

Tinker and student speech attorney Mike Hiestand will visit the University as part of the Tinker Tour, a “traveling civics lesson” sponsored by the Student Press Law Center. Tinker’s campus talk is set for 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 5, in the Ferguson Center Theater and is free to the public.

In the 1960s, Tinker was among a group of middle- and high-school students who wore black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam War. Administrators sent the students home, but the freedom-of-speech case made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled to protect the First Amendment rights of students.

“Mary Beth Tinker is a trailblazer when it comes to freedom of expression and free speech in schools,” said Meredith Cummings, director of the Alabama Scholastic Press Association, which is co-sponsoring Tinker’s UA visit, along with the journalism department. “She’s taking time to talk to young people about the importance of freedom of speech, a lesson that can get left behind when students are readying for standardized tests. She’s teaching them how to stand up for what they believe in and how to be heard.”

ASPA, along with the Alabama Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, will also sponsor a stop at 12:30 p.m. Nov. 5 at the Birmingham Civil Rights Museum, where Tinker will speak to a group of high school students.