Troublemakers

A powerful history of student protests and student rights during the desegregation eraIn the late 1960s, protests led by students roiled high schools across the country. And yet, these young people had no legal right to express dissent at school. As school desegregation finally took place on a wide scale, students of color were particularly vocal in contesting the racial discrimination they saw in school policies and practices.

Des Moines case.A series of students' rights lawsuits in the desegregation era challenged everything from school curricula to disciplinary policies. It was not until 1969 that the Supreme Court would recognize the First Amendment rights of students in the landmark Tinker v. But in casting students as "troublemakers" or as "culturally deficient," school authorities and other experts persuaded the courts to set limits on rights protections