Get to Know: Mary Beth Tinker

Please join us on April 24 as we continue the series at Marquette Law School's Lubar Center for Public Policy Research and Civic Education, Get to Know, with a new "Face of the Case" program. Derek Mosley, director of the Lubar Center, will welcome Mary Beth Tinker, of the U.S. Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969), which ruled that students and teachers do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."

Supreme Court cases are routinely referred to by name, yet it may be too easy to forget the real people behind the names. The Lubar Center’s “Face of the Case” series attempts to showcase the people. In 1965, Ms. Tinker was in eighth grade when she and other students wore black armbands to protest the Vietnam War, leading to a suspension from school. The “Tinker test,” still in use today, determines whether a school's actions to prevent disruptions violate a student's First Amendment rights. Ms. Tinker has a master's degree in nursing and public health and is an activist for youth and for peace.

The program will begin promptly at 12:15 p.m. and last an hour. It will include lunch, conversation, and community in Eckstein Hall.