Supreme court case, tanker versus des moines, will be looking at one of the key players, he will be joining us from des moines iowa, first courtesy of cbs news, Walter Cronkite and the evening news 50 years ago today. Supreme part today endorsed the broader Student Program so long as the protest does not disrupt or interfere with the rights of others. A justice hugo blocks at the ruling started the revolutionary era. They upheld threat of three des moines tshirts to wear black anti war arm bands to high school. They said students do not leave their freedoms of speech and expression at the school door. That courtesy of the cbs news, and two of the key players in this case, Mary Beth Tinker and john tanker, joining us from des moines, iowa is john tanker, good morning, thank you for being with us. Good morning, it is great to be with you. And we apologize that youre sister mary beth cannot be with us, we understand that there has been some ice and weather and the greater des moines area so we appreciate you checking out and being with us on this sunday morning. Thats right what give us give our audience well, we wore black arm bands to protest the war in vietnam back in december of 1965, and when we were suspended we decided to sue the School System pro violating our First Amendment rights for freedom of expression and we lost at the district court, the Federal District court here in des moines. We appealed to the Appellate Court in st. Louis and there they split, 44, so we appealed to the Supreme Court, the u. S. Supreme court. There had been a previous case coming out of the fifth circuit where students had been given the right to wear freedom buttons around the Civil Rights Movement, and so with the split between the two circuit courts, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. At the Supreme Court, as you mentioned, we won 72. Our goal for the next hour, and we welcome our guests on cspan and on American History tv on cspan3 to discuss the case and also 50 years later, why it is relevant today. From the majority opinion First Amendment rights are available to teachers and students. And hardly it can hardly be argued that students or teachers shed their Constitutional Rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate. Can you explain the significance of that decision . Well, this is the first time that the Supreme Court had recognized that students in the Public Schools are persons under the law and therefore they are endowed with their First Amendment rights, with the proviso that they not disrupt the educational environment. There cannot be a material and substantial disruption of the environment, and they cannot infringe on the rights of others. This is the first time that had been articulated why the Supreme Court. So that was a significant change in the way that students in the publix Public Schools were seen. Well we should point out that this is the date of the historic Supreme Court ruling, it began before that. Lyndon b. Johnson had been sworn in to a fouryear term, and the war in vietnam continued to escalate. There were an estimated 184,000 u. S. Soldiers in vietnam, and look at the increase from the previous year, when there were just over 23,000 soldiers. The death toll, from a few hundred in 1964, to nearly 2000 in 1965. Explain what you, your sister, and what others were thinking about during that time period. You were 15, 16 years old at the time . Yes, i was 15 years old. I should explain that my sister and i both grew up within the Civil Rights Movement. Our parents were both active in the Civil Rights Movement. I will tell a short story here we lived in a small town in iowa that only had one black family and the kids in that family were not permitted to use the public swimming pool. My father was a methodist minister in that town. He brought that issue to the city council there and instead of just correcting it and allowing the kids to go to the swimming pool, they denied the kids permission and the church where my father was a pastor thought that was a divisive issue in the church, so they did not renew his contract. So we moved to des moines. He was appointed to a different church. In des moines, my mother made sure that we had black friends. She became involved in the Civil Rights Movement in des moines, and indeed we did have black friends. When we invited them to come to our church, that church also did not want to have black people in their church. So they also did not renew our fathers contracts. Fathers contract. At that point he began working for a quaker organization, the American Friends Service committee, and his title was Peace Education secretary. So his job was to bring in speakers about World Affairs and to basically promote peace. That was the environment that we grew up in. By the time the war in vietnam was building up, it was natural for us to be opposed to it. So by thanksgiving time of 1965, there was a large demonstration in washington, d. C. There were two charter buses for milo, mostly they were College Students from the State University of iowa, grinnell college, and the university of iowa, but there were other peace activists. I asked for permission to be on that bus trip and go to washington, d. C. And i was able to go. On the way back from that, there was discussion on the bus what we might do to continue to protest the war. The idea was raised that we could wear black armbands. Black armbands had also been worn during the Civil Rights Era to memorialize the three girls that were killed in birmingham, the four girls, i should say, and the three civil rights workers that were also killed. There were black armbands worn around that, so it was very natural to wear black armbands to more the deaths to mourn the deaths on all sides of the conflict in vietnam, and we also wore them to promote the idea of Robert Kennedys for a Christmas Truce that year. When they found out we were going to wear armbands, the principles got together and decided the armbands would not be permitted. We decided that we should wear them anyway, so we wore the black armbands, were completely silent, a symbol of our opposition to the war. We were suspended from school. There was a Community Decision really, among the Peace Community in des moines and in iowa that we would go ahead and pursue the matter in the courts, so that is how it got into the court system. We are talking with john tinker. Our phone lines are open. We are dividing our phone lines if you are a student or teacher, 202 7488000. If for all others, 202 7488001. We know your family had moved to st. Louis, missouri, but to get a sense of what is happening in 1965, your sister was in middle school and you have two younger siblings in Elementary School they too wore the armbands, correct . Thats correct. We all were opposed to the war. We felt it was a horrible loss of life going on in vietnam and we were all mourning the deaths. So yes, we did all wear armbands. I will say, the morning mary beth wore the armband, i was delivering newspapers. It occurred to me that we have not had a group discussion. It was not just our family and Christopher Eckhart who wore the armbands. I was a member of the unitarian youth group, and the whole youth group had decided to wear armbands. After we found out that the School Authorities had banned the wearing of armbands, we had not had any kind of group discussion. While i was delivering newspapers, i was thinking that we really should get together. I got on the telephone and call people up and told them to hold off until we could have a discussion of what we were going to do about that. But mary beth had already gone to school and she left early, and chris, when i got a hold of him, he said i dont care, i am going to wear it anyway. He went ahead and wore it to school. After the two of them were suspended the first day, we had a meeting at chrishouse that afternoon. We tried to call the president of the school board and he told us that it was not an important issue and we should wait until january and take the matter to the school board. But that would have been after the christmas. The christmas period, and we thought it was important to support the Christmas Truce. We thought we had a First Amendment right to wear the armbands. So the rest of us wore the armbands and were suspended the next day. Did you ever get an apology after the fact from either the principal, school board members, teachers, others who said you could not wear the armband . You know, we never got a formal apology, but i do not feel one is really required at this point. The des moines School System has been very welcoming to us and has really treated us very well and provided opportunities for us to talk to students, and been very they seem to be very supportive of the case as it sits now. Why is your case, 50 years later, relative today relevant today . Think of all the issues the students have. There is obviously the gun violence issue, the parkland shooting ago in florida, but any number of School Shootings have taken place. Global warming is an issue that students are very concerned with, and there are local issues that students encounter. The suppression of student speech often occurs because schools are embarrassed because the students are pointing out problems that the School Administration may be causing. Anyway, students all throughout the country have things they want to say, and i think it is good for our society if they are allowed to say it. Lets get to your phone calls as we look back at the 50th anniversary of this landmark case. One of the cases we featured in our landmark cases series. Michael from coral springs, florida, good morning. Good morning. I have to say, it is a real honor to do this. Mr. Tinker, your name is on the ap exam every year, so it is kind of cool to talk to you. Thank you, michael. Thank you. Ive always wanted to ask and i am glad you just segued into it are we just fortunate that you guys were protesting something noble, like the war . The other reference you made, some kids want to protest about civil rights and other noble causes. What if eight students came into School Wearing swastikas on armbands, or something that is abhorrent. The situation did not address what you were protesting, just your right to wear them. How would you respond to that . Michael, thank you. Michael, thank you. Thats right. Our case, looking back on it, was a silent symbol. We were not standing up on the desk proclaiming anything, we were just wearing our armbands. And it was obviously a political statement that we were making. So it fit right down the center of what free speech is all about. That is fortunate, in a way. If you had a swastika or a hate symbol of any kind, i think it would complicate the matter, because the disruption to the educational environment is a very important consideration. In our country, we have compulsory education and the Public Schools are what we call a creature of state. So it is kind of a doublesided issue. We have to have an appropriate educational environment, and yet, because it is a creature of the state, it has to be true to the Constitutional Rights that we have. So it is a fortunate who incidents a fortunate coincidence of nondisruptive protest. Our guest is john tinker, a defendant in the case tinker v des moines. Did you have a chance to listen to the oral argument . This is kind of a sad story for me. I arrived at the airport in cedar rapids, with plenty of time for the 11 00 p. M. Flight. I had had a long day. When i got to the terminal full of people, i fell asleep. When i woke up, everybody else was gone. I was kind of surprised that nobody had bothered to just shake me on the shoulder or something to wake me up, but there it was. I dont know if the fact that i had a beard and long hair at the time had anything to do with that, but anyway, i missed that flight. In the morning, i could only get a standby flight. I got bumped off of the flight that connected from washington to chicago. So by the time i got to washington my father picked the up and my father picked me up, it was all over. I have since been able to hear the oral arguments and they are quite interesting. If anyone in the audience would be interested to hear those arguments, they are available online. And they are available on the cspan website. You can also go to landmark cases for a 90 Minute Program on this case. Greg from holyoke, massachusetts, thank you for waiting. Good morning. I would like to ask mr. Tinker what his views are on kids not being able to wear their maga hats and shirts to school. Thank you. My personal belief is that we should permit all forms of nondisruptive expression in the schools, especially ones that have political components. There was a case in california where students have wanted to wear American Flag shirts to school on cinco de mayo, which was a mexican holiday. My sister and i, mary beth and i did write an amicus brief on behalf of those students that wanted to wear the American Flag. I would support the wearing of maga has or hats or maga shirts. I disagree with that position, but i agree with their expression to wear those. Is that the original armband on your arm this morning . No, this is not. This is an armband that has been printed up by the tinker tour, which is a project that my sister, mary beth, has organized. It is commemorative of that 50th anniversary. The original armband was black. It did not have the peace symbol on it. We have kind of elaborate at it a little. The website is tinkertourusa. Org. Mary beth tinker, part of our landmark cases series, described what happened in 1965. I was very, very nervous, because i was a shy kid anyway and only 13 years old, in eighth grade. People were talking about what to do, what to do, but i decided to go ahead and try to be brave like the other kids i had seen as examples on the news and things. So i had an armband, i had it on and i picked up my friend connie, and she said, you better take that off and you are going to get in trouble. When i got to school, i saw one of my favorite teachers after lunch, he gave me a pink pass. I went to the office after lunch and i looked around the office and i looked at mrs. Tanner and the vice principal, and they said to take off the armband because it is against the rules. As i tell the students in the schools now, in a great stand of courage and conviction, i said ok, and i took off that armband and i gave it to them, but i learned a very important lesson then. You dont have to be the most courageous person in the world. You can be you. You can be you, you can be scared, you can be shy and make a difference, because that is what happens. Mary beth tinker, along with her brother, who made history in a landmark case celebrating its 50th anniversary today. If you want to follow us on twitter at cspan history, we have a poll. Do students today have enough free speech rights at school . This is part of our American History tv programming. 27 percent say it is about right. 13 say too much, 51 say not enough. Richard is next from redlands, california. Good morning. Good morning. Go ahead, richard. How are you doing, sir . This is richard from california. I just moved out here, but i came from des moines to southern california. I lost my fiancee wife, fiancee, to cancer and we moved out here and i got my son up here in school. He is now 13 years old and the schools are having sexual abuse going on, Something Like that, and i am just not understanding it and the kid is not getting the right schooling, nobody calls me in to talk to me or to say, you know, we need to address this or that. It is just weird how they do the schooling out here compared to what we are used to. But i just want to say god bless you guys. Ok richard, thank you for the call. Do you want to weigh in on that point . Thank you, richard. Im sorry to hear about your fiance. The School Officials have a tremendous task, and i have nothing but admiration for them and what they are trying to do. And it is a difficult role they are in. In regard to our case, you had mentioned earlier, justice blacks dissent in our case, saying now is the time that the students are going to run riot is run riotus in the schools, and that has not happened. Originally, some of the administrators felt they were not going to know how to handle this freedom of expression that the students now had, but a lot of them have figured out a good balance. It is really often an Educational Opportunity when you have problems in the School Related to expression. Remember, the students in school are not just learning the offense science and history math and science and history and all of that, they are learning how to be citizens in our democracy. It is important that the First Amendment be respected and students are taught to respect the First Amendment, and not think that it is just something that we say because it sounds good, that the First Amendment is something we really believe in. Our landmark cases series, which included not only the tinker case, but New York Times versus sullivan, griswold the connecticut, cassidy v u. S. All of them on our website at landmarkcases. Cspan. Org. In this plaque is commemorating what your sister did at her school for Supreme Court history and continuing to work as an First Amendment rights. Back here phone calls. Diana new york city. Good morning. Hi, in my seventh grade history class we are learning about your case, and i wonder if you think certain racial or homophobic slurs targeting other students should still be protected in schools . Can you stay on the line after john tinker answers that . I would like to followup. My feeling and this is not the official, legal position or the case law necessarily, but my feeling is that some expression verges into virtual assault. I know that assault is defined purely as physical violence, but a threat can really cause physical consequences on the receiving end of the threat. There is quite a bit of controversy over the issue of hate speech. I am generally very, very supportive of speech and i think that our society is better off if you do express in words their opinions of things, that i know that threats converge in toward the actual nature of violence. So it is a complex issue. Speech outside of school that affects what goes on in the school, it is a very difficult issue. I think that generally speaking, we should avoid suppression of speech and that any control of speech should be done with circumspection and a great deal of concern that we not infringe on the speaker, but i hope that our society can find ways to work out its problems, especially without resorting to physical violence. I think that is a very bad breakdown, obviously. The only way we really have is with words. So we depend on our ability to communicate with words in order to avoid more serious breakdowns in society. I am very hesitant to restrict what anyone might say. And the argument in the 72 decision handed down today, the First Amendment to the u. S. Constitution, which provides freedom of speech, congress should make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of people easily to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. I want to go back to diane. Yes . You are 12 years old. Mary beth was 13 at the time, john tinker was 15. Do you think you would have the courage to do what they did more than 50 years ago on issues you are facing today in high school, Elementary School, or middle school . I think if it was affecting our country that it would be affecting me too, and i would want to play a role in that and speak out. Diane, thank you very much. Where do you go to school . Roto Country School in the bronx. John tinker, what do you hear from this 12yearold . I think it is wonderful. We need that kind of courage from our students and i think they will carry that courage with them as they grow older and become more active citizens, voting citizens. I think that is a very good attitude to take. You are in des moines, iowa, where rachel is joining us, a teacher. Good morning. Good morning. Im at middle School Teacher in des moines, iowa, and our students study your case and it is a great honor to speak to you, mr. Tinker. My question concerns i think you mentioned it just now concerns the internet and speech in cyberspace. The court seems conflicted on how to apply the standards set in tinker be des moines, and how students rights dont stop at the schoolhouse gates, and cyberspace is Something Else that is both at the schoolhouse gate and beyond. My question is, how do you think the standards set by tinker versus des moines should apply to student speech on the internet, which can be disruptive in the school . I am wondering what your thoughts are on that. Thank you very much. Before we get john tinkers response, what is your reaction from the students when you teach this case . They are fascinated by it. It is some thing that was incredibly influential to our society at large and specifically for student rights. That it happened here in des moines and it is something local in their community they love it. Rachel, thank you for the call. John tinker . Thank you, rachel. It is an honor for me to be here speaking with you too. It is a difficult problem, the cyberspace and freedom of speech. My view is that we should be distinguishing between speech which is conveying ideas and speech which is threatening and is an attempt to intimidate people. How that can be done by the courts, i am not sure. The distinction between inside and outside of the schoolhouse gates is becoming blurred. I will go back to my general position regarding freedom of speech and the importance that it holds for our democracy, and that we should be very careful when we consider limiting speech. I would encourage our culture, our society to teach kids to try to see things from the other side. When you have hate speech, you have someone who is trying to inflict damage or intimidation on another person, and you have a person who is on the receiving end of that. An old principle in law and ethics and immorality is to look at thing from the and in morality is to look at things from the other side, a different point of view. It is not easy. If it were, we would not have these problems. But it is an Educational Opportunity for an adult with a mature sense of right and wrong and ethical and moral principles and it is an opportunity for an adult to help the students understand what they are saying and how it is going to be received at the other end. I know that there are cases where that works. I would encourage teachers to help their students find a mature position. Dan johnson an attorney argued the case on your behalf. What did he tell the justices . They asked if speech he inside the schools should be and he answered yes. That is not exactly the position that the court took when he wrote his majority opinion. It is not exactly the same as freedom of speech inside a school as he would have on a Street Corner or a soapbox. Educational environment is fundamental. It is important to the functioning of the schools. The speech that would be disruptive of the educational environment cannot be permitted. He said in order to limit speech in the schools, it must be interiorly and substantially disruptive. He says that minor irritations and disruptions have to be tolerated because that is the nature of our society. In our society, we are going to have disputes and contentions and we cannot try to cut them all out. We can only control it if it will be materially and substantially disruptive or if there is a reasonable fear that it will be for the school environment. The two dissenters in a 72 decision. Handed down 50 years ago today. Among those suspended, your friend, christopher eckardt. Who was he . Chris eckhardt actually became the class president. He went to the unitarian church. I knew him through not. His parents were very strong civil rights advocates and very strong peace advocates. Our families knew each other. We had the four parents, chris was also a very strong activist and a good guy. He was not really a close friend of mine, but we knew each other and i respected him. He became the class president of his high school. The student body, as a whole respected him. By the time the case was desicded 50 years ago today, this is for tv. How did you find out about the decision . When my family moved to st. Louis, i was attending the university of iowa. I was living at a dormitory and i was in my room. A reporter from the School Newspaper called me up and informed me that we had won our Supreme Court case. He asked me how i felt about that. I said, i am glad. I was happy that we had won our case, but i also realized it did not stop the war. We wore the armbands to protest but the war continued for some years after we won our freedom of speech case. It was different issues. Our victory was not really our primary goal. Our primary goal was to stop the war. We understood that we were a small part of that effort. Lets go to gary. Good morning, gary. I am a retired teacher and engineer. I wanted to relate some of the trials and tribulations. Just to set the picture. I had studied history and history told me that the war in vietnam was a big mistake. In the 5 history classes i took, i would take view of being opposed to the war. As a result of that and having written several editorials to the School Newspaper and local newspaper, at the end of my senior year, there was a history award that was to be given out in my school. I had all as in the courses that i took. I had a perfect score. The head of the History Department denied me the award because she said i had not really learned history if i was opposed to the war in vietnam. It was a struggle of being ostracized. Just for holding a point of view that i thought was historically correct. I think history proved it was. Thank you. Well, that is quite a story. Im sorry it happened that way. I can only say that maybe say it to your whole audience. If you think you are a patriotic american and you feel the way to express that is by being disruptive. You want to cause problems for somebody who disagrees with your opinion, in my opinion you are not being a patriotic american. The Supreme Court vindicated us in a sense. They said that what we did was completely an american thing to do. To express your opinion on war or any other issue is a very american thing to do. If we are going to bring our country into the future, we need to be able to express our opinions and not just express them. We need to be able to hear other people when they express their opinions. You have told the story that illustrated a time in history when people were not so good at doing that. I hope, Going Forward into the future, we can improve on that. Eric is a teacher joining us from new york. Good morning and welcome to the conversation. This is a great conversation. I was 15 years old also in 1965 in new york. It is very interesting. I called to ask if we could expand the discussion somewhat. I want to make a point that there is a wider issue. The right to protest is very important. That has been the theme here. I went back and i beat a lot of history. 1951, we got involved in vietnam. All the way through eisenhower and kennedy into the 1960s, we were involved more and more. It was not until 1964 when there was an incident that enabled it might have been attack on an American Ship or maybe not. Congress authorized military involvement at that basis. In 1968, congress repealed. The whole notion that we could be involved in the vietnam war and other wars since then was without congress authorizing it and how they cast aside the constitutional responsibility. What i am asking, this must have been part of your protest, not to just protest for the sake of wearing an armband. Was that a consideration, how congress was not authorizing this military involvement when that is the primary responsibility for congress . Can you give your thoughts . I would like to hear. Thank you. That is a very important point to make. A very important question. At the time, we were opposed to the war because of the suffering, the death and destruction. Also, for the hope. We wore armbands hoping that what Robert Kennedy had proposed would be taken seriously and lead to an ending to the war. This is all postworld war ii. The russians, the soviet union was our ally in world war ii to defeat the nazis. And the japanese, also. Following that, that war, world war ii, it immediately began an arms race between the west and the soviet union. The growth of this destructive potential and Nuclear Arsenals on both sides. The fear the Nuclear Weapon is an instrument of terror. The threat of the Nuclear Weapon is tantamount to terrorism. The mutually assured destruction we were all living with a sort of suicide pact. It is not the kind of life that we want. If often carry them with me, b khashoggi. I wanted to summarize. We have had dozens of tweets. This sense of what our viewers are thinking right now. Does this address only the positions that we consider political question mark is it relevant . How do you respond to that . It does address the central core. Political speech is the most protected speech in the u. S. System. I am a believer that all kinds of expression needs to be protected. I am reminded about the way the nazis considered abstract art as somehow a violation of your reference to the journalist from the washington post, and i want to summarize, we have had dozens of tweets with this one by job of really summarizes what our viewers are thinking this morning, he writes the following, does tanker voices des moines address only those positions we might consider political or is it relevant to other expressions . How do you respond to that . Matt it does address the central core. Political speech is the most protected speech in the u. S. System. I am a believer that all kinds of expression needs to be protected. I am reminded about the way the nazis considered abstract art as somehow a violation of society. There are all kinds of expressions besides political expressions that are central to being able to express human values. Human values are very complex. Thankfully so. Our society is made up of many more things than politics and political law. The arts are very wide and varied. We need to enable expression in all forms of the arts, as well as in political speech. I am a proponent in freedom of expression. If it does not destroy our society and if it does not violate the rights of others, you will find me, personally, generally in support of it. We are talking we are talking about tinker versus des moines. You and your sister have been traveling across the country, talking about the case. Rebecca is a student journalist. A horrific shooting that forever changed that school and community. Here is what she told a gathering in des moines. My name is rebecca schneider. I am the editor in chief. If he did not know, last year, on february 14, it was the site of a shooting that killed 17 people. I do not think that is what it is all it is known for now. We are not known as a school and victims. We are known as a school of fighters. We speak up for what we believe in. We advocate for the rights we believe that we deserve. If youre going to take anything from today, it should be that it does not matter your age. If you are old enough to be affected by society, your old enough to have a say in it and got for what you believe in. I have seen that as a student hournalist. About about stories that were important to me and my classmates. Culture, diversity, each of these are is important as the other. If any of these issues is important to you, i encourage you to stand up for your rights and to speak up for them and write about them. Student voices are the most important thing in this country right now. They are the things that are keeping us together and holding everybody else accountable for their actions. It write about the issues and affect change. Thank you. It will air later table air later today. Joining us from clinton, maryland, a teacher. Good morning. I want to tell you that i am a 77yearold man who wanted to protest something when i was in Elementary School. What i wanted to protest was the requirement of singing the National Anthem by Francis Scott key. One of the reasons i wanted to protest was that Francis Scott key was a holder of slaves. He was racially bigoted and he wrote that bombastic, that violent National Anthem. Now that i am 77 years old, i am protesting. I am protesting that all youngsters throughout the u. S. Should learn the negro National Anthem by James Weldon Johnson. He voted in the 1900s. If you go to wikipedia right now and looking up, youll find that years ago, there was a contest between James Weldon Johnson and Francis Scott keys at National Anthems. James weldon johnsons won, but the judges rejected it. I say to all people, no matter what your age, if you cannot do it when youre young like i was, do it when you get old. Thank you for the call. I think that is an excellent idea. That is a wonderful comment. It points out the need to bring it up. To say it and bring that to us, to let us know that. I agree. The Francis Scott key song is a glorification of war. I think to lift every voice and sing would be a better National Anthem. I do not know how other people feel about that. I think it is open to debate. Everyone should say what they think about that and let us know. I think that is an excellent idea. You heard from rebecca. What are your general observations about this generation . Thank you, rebecca for your comments. I have had the opportunity to meet with journalists from parkland, florida. The school there that had the terrible shooting with 17 students killed. The student journalists are very aware that another court case limited press freedom in the schools and it is an important impediment to student journalists in some parts of the country, although there have been 14 states that have opened up their School Newspapers to freedom of the press. I think that is a very important thing to do. The students today are more aware and more active by far than the students were when i was at school. I think it is a very positive development. I think our society will benefit greatly from it. I encourage student journalists and students of all kinds to speak up, say what you think and let us know what you think. I think it is very essential to our society that you do so. Good morning. I am just retired now at 60 years old. Certainly, the congress was made by what may have been an overplayed incident. I will move on. Regarding the students, absolutely. Student needs to be vocal and they should be given full rights. The problem i had most recently is that Citizens United case that opened pandoras box even wider of corporate purchasing of the elections. They moved it up into the ad phase instead of just being lobbyists. They can just fund elections. What do think about the chance that it would be reversed . Leaning in the direction of looking into the past and holding that stand . The fundamental premise of that case is freedom of speech. Right. Thank you, andy. Very important question. The Citizens United decision is one of the most bizarre decisions that i am aware of. To say that money and free speech are the same thing . Cant we distinguish between money and free speech . Money is money and speech is speech. How we spend money we had a divergence since the 1970s by the rich have been getting richer and the poor have been getting more poor. Back in the eisenhower years, the maximum marginal tax rate was 91 . Now, i am not sure what it is. Maybe 20 or 30 . To equate money with speech is a very strange thing. If money were speech, i would be able to go down to the store and talk my way into whatever i wanted. Money is not speech. You equate them, you are basically handing your democracy over to the people with money. Whether that is corrected at the Supreme Court or whether it is corrected through legislation, i hope it is corrected. It will be hard to correct because people talk about buying congress. It is not totally like that, but it is significantly like that. Money does rule a lot of congresspeople. Their opinions follow the money. If youre going to have a democracy, you really have to have one person, one vote. Not one dollar, one vote. I think we need to elect a congress that will overturn it if the Supreme Court itself will not overturn it. Let me bring it back to this case. Why is it relevant today . It is relevant today because the world has not shed its problems. In a lot of ways, there is an indication that it has hardly progressed on some of the problems. Some of the problems have become much worse. Freedom of speech in the schools, among the students who have a future in front of them is absolutely essential in my opinion. John tinker joining us from des moines. Thank you for being with us. thank you for having me, having toure