Do school children have First Ammendment rights?

I do not see why this necessarily would be so, for a number of reasons.

First of all, minors generally do not have all rights that adults have. They cannot vote, enter into a legal contract or get married. They cannot consent to sex with an adult. They cannot buy alcohol or drive a car. Denying minors many rights that adults enjoy, on the grounds that they are not mature enough to make decisions on their own, has never been seen as contradictory to the principles of a contitutional democratic republic.

Also: Minors get assigned a guardian (parent or otherwise) to make decisions for them. I think the case can be made that while attending school, teachers are in some form acting as guardians of the students (not of course on the same level as a parent, but a guardian nevertheless), and thus have a similar right as a parent to tell a kid to remove a piece of clothing with an offensive slogan, and so on.

And also: If the constitution applied to the classroom, then the right to keep and bear arms, which after all is of equal rank as the right to free speech in America, would also apply. And yet, we do not allow school kids to carry guns into class.

And last but not least: The school is not necessarily a "public forum" in the sense that everything goes. It is a reserved zone for a certain purpose. There is no free speech in the courtroom either. No one is forced to attend school in the USA. Giving a student a choice to "shut up and get with the program or get the hell out" is not a violation of free speech. The student can choose to not attend class, and have their free speech outside of the campus all day long. I think it can be argued that teachers do not have the right to prohibit speech, but very well have the right to kick someone out of class for being disruptive. Being shown the door is not the same as having speech rights impaired.

"It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."

My understanding is that this decision reflects the opinions of some people about how things should be, but it is not derived in a consistent way from underlying principles.

"It can hardly be argued that ten year old kids shed their right to bear arms at the schoolhouse gate."

As you have already said, there are many rights that minors are not allowed to exercise but some that they are. They are allowed to exercise their right to free speech but not to keep and bear arms (in school).

Child had a pencil/pen taken from them because it had a religious saying on it.

Child was banned from distributing free tickets to a church event/play

Child was told that a shirt from bible camp was inappropriate and was told to switch it or go home.

The liberal media never has an agenda and is always unbiased.

Still fairly confident that those things actually happened. :shrug:

... those were the ones I saw. There were more but as I was on the treadmill I didn't see/retain them all.

You have my blessing to google some more. :shrug:

It's like you are trying to be snarky but I'm not sure what your point is...

I was just trying to clarify.

You say you only saw on the news that Christians were being stifled. Doesn't necessarily mean that is so, just that that's what you saw on the news. And when did snark become a word? Recently?

In any case...

1) Who said anything about "only" Christians?

2) 2 of the 3 examples were not Christian specific so likely you see what you want to see

3) If you have something to add the conversation feel free. I was passing along some potential context to the OP that I thought might have been the source of the conversation.

of course you could have meant church of the undead and the guitar bible.

and defense seems to be the mode du an.

You can always count on the liberal media to give you the whole story.

Or at least I don't see a problem. If a child wants to wear a shirt from bible camp, let him do so. Basically for me, I think the problem comes in when the teachers are teaching the students religion.

Any one of those things, without the religious subtext, would not merit any kind of mention on even a local news cast. If the child were distributing tickets to their non-school related play, or wearing any other shirt which violated the school's dress code, we never would have heard about it. Indeed such incidents happen every day, in schools all over this country.

That is what makes them newsworthy.

People want to debate whether or not a shirt with a religious slogan on it should be a violation of school code.

The question is whether or not school children should be "protected" from religious ideas or whether they are offensive. That is the story.

I wonder what would happen if a kid wore a tee shirt with a picture of a sacrificed chicken?

Keep in mind that a cross is an instrument of death by torture, it's supposed to kill, but slowly.

But let's say it is --

You can't legally carry a gun at a school anyway. At all. That's a right of the state and the school to say no guns. I'm not talking a Texas university (ugh), but say an elementary school where a ten year old would be.

In theory there's free speech in schools. I never rocked the A with the circle but I think anyone who really tried it, especially at a secondary school, maybe in the deep South? You'll find it's a bit different.

I was happy to leave there. I'm a lot freer in my speech and life on here, and in the general public than I ever was at school.

i never thought twice about it and no one ever mentioned it.

There has to be a compelling reason to deny a class of people the rights guaranteed to all under the constitution. There is no compelling reason to deny free speech to minors. The 14th amendment demands equal treatment of all.

Anyone can come up with a reason...

I feel that the educational value brought about by allowing controversial speech in schools is much more important than the effect they have on the sentiments of some.

Of course children have Constitutional rights.

They are people.

There are certain decisions which can be made on their behalf by their parents and/or guardians. One of those is assent to the rules of an educational institution.

You might as well ask whether adults in college have Constitutional rights, or whether employees in the workplace have Constitutional rights.