Rehearing Denied Feb. 19, 1974.
See 415 U.S. 939.
On petition for writ of certiorari to the United States Court of
Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.
Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, with whom Mr. Justice MARSHALL concurs,
dissenting.
Petitioners are male Pawnee Indians who are students at Pawnee
Junior High School, a public school in Oklahoma. They sought to
wear their hair parted in the middle with a long braid on each side
so that, in their words, they could follow the 'old traditional
ways'
Page 414 U.S.
1097 , 1098
and because such a hairstyle was 'one way of telling people that
I am proud [to be an Indian].' Others testified that young Indians
sought to wear braided hair because of a new-found pride in their
heritage, in an attempt to 'regain their tradition, to learn their
culture.'
These youth were suspended from school indefinitely on April 24,
1972, 1 for being in violation of a school hair-length regulation,
which forbids hair reaching the shirt collar or ears. The Court of
Appeals justified the suspension on the ground that the regulation
was rational in that it sought to achieve the objective of
'instilling pride and initiative among the students leading to
scholarship attainment and high school spirit and morale.' The
court stressed testimony from one school superintendent that a
school system cannot countenance different groups and still remain
one organization.
Petitioners claim, inter alia, that the school hair-length
restriction unjustifiably impinges on the freedom of expression
guaranteed them by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. This Court
has consistently, over my dissents, refused to review lower court
decisions passing on the constitutionality of school hair-length
regulations, whether such regulations have been upheld or struck
down, and regardless of the grounds on which the lower courts have
reached their conclusions. I have noted the deep division among the
Circuits on this issue, and have thought that it is an issue of
particular personal interest to many and of considerable
constitutional importance. See Freeman v. Flake, 405 U.S. 1032;
Olff v. East Side Union High School District,
404 U.S. 1042.
Page 414 U.S.
1097 , 1099
Petitioners were not wearing their hair in a desired style
simply because it was the fashionable or accepted style, or because
they somehow felt the need to register an inchoate discontent with
the general malaise they might have perceived in our society. They
were in fact attempting to broadcast a clear and specific message
to their fellow students and others- their pride in being Indian.
This, I believe, should clearly bring this case within the ambit of
Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District,
393 U.S. 503,
where we struck down a school policy which refused to allow
students to wear black armbands in protest of the Vietnam War. We
recognized that such armbands were closely akin to pure speech and
were entitled to First Amendment protection, id., at 505-506, at
least where, as here,2 there was no finding that the operation of
the school was substantially endangered by the symbolic speech:
'In order for the State in the person
of school officials to justify prohibition of a particular
expression of opinion, it must be able to show that its action was
caused by something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort
and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint.
Certainly where there is no finding and no showing that engaging in
the forbidden conduct would 'materially and substantially interfere
with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the
Page 414 U.S.
1097 , 1100
operation of the school,' the prohibition cannot be sustained.'
Id., at 509.
There was an opinion voiced by school officials that allowing
petitioners to wear their hair in an Indian manner while
restricting the hair length of white students would somehow be
'disruptive,' in that an 'integrated school system cannot
countenance different groups and remain one organization.' But as
we noted in Tinker, this Court long ago recognized that our
constitutional system repudiates the idea that a State may conduct
its schools 'to foster a homogeneous people.' Id., at 511. In Meyer
v. Nebraska,
262 U.S.
390, 402, the Court said:
'In order to submerge the individual
and develop ideal citizens, Sparta assembled the males at seven
into barracks and intrusted their subsequent education and training
to official guardians. Although such measures have been
deliberately approved by men of great genius, their ideas touching
the relation between individual and State were wholly different
from those upon which our institutions rest; and it hardly will be
affirmed that any legislature could impose such restrictions upon
the people of a State without doing violence to both letter and
spirit of the Constitution.'
And in Keyishian v. Board of Regents,
385 U.S.
589, 603, we stated that:
"The vigilant protection of
constitutional freedoms is nowhere more vital than in the community
of American schools.' Shelton v. Tucker, [
364 U.S. 479] at 487 [, 5
L. Ed. 2d 231]. The classroom is peculiarly the 'market-place of
ideas.' The Nation's future depends upon leaders trained through
wide exposure to that robust exchange of ideas which discovers
truth 'out
Page 414 U.S.
1097 , 1101
of a multitude of tongues, [rather] than through any kind of
authoritative selection."
The effort to impose uniformity on petitioners is especially
repugnant in view of the history of white treatment of the
education of the American Indian. In the late 1800's, at about the
same time that the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 fragmented Indian
tribal land holdings and allotted land to individual Indians with
the effect of breaking up tribal structures,3 the Bureau of Indian
Affairs (BIA) began operating a system of boarding schools with the
express policy of stripping the Indian child of his cultural
heritage and identity:
'Such schools were run in a rigid
military fashion, with heavy emphasis on rustic vocational
education. They were designed to separate a child from his
reservation and family, strip him of his tribal lore and mores,
force the complete abandonment of his native language, and prepare
him for never again returning to his people.'4
Again in 1944, a House Select Committee on Indian Affairs
offered the same recommendation for achieving the 'final solution
of the Indian problem': 'The goal of Indian education should be to
make the Indian child a better American rather than to equip him
simply to be a better Indian.'5
A massive study by the Senate Special Subcommittee on Indian
Education, 'Indian Education: A National Tragedy-A National
Challenge,' S. Rep.No. 91-501, 91st Cong., 1st Sess., reviewed this
policy, which it found rooted in a 'self-righteous intolerance of
tribal communities and cultural
Page 414 U.S.
1097 , 1102
differences.' Id., at 21. The Subcommittee found that many
teachers in BIA schools
'still see their role as that of
'civilizing the native.' . . . One consequence of this unfortunate
situation is a serious communications breakdown between student and
staff and a serious lack of productive student-staff
interactions.
'. . . BIA administrators and
teachers believe that Indians can choose only between total
'Indianness'-whatever that is-and complete assimilation into the
dominant society. There seems to be little if any understanding of
acculturation processes or the desirability of 'combining a firm
cultural identity with occupational success and consequent self
esteem." Id., at 61-62.
The same study found that similar attitudes often exist in
public schools which educate Indian students. [
Footnote 6]
The results of such a policy, mirrored in the policy of the
school in this case to force all students into one
Page 414 U.S.
1097 , 1103
homogeneous mold even when it impinges on their racial and
cultural values, has been disastrous for the young Indian child who
is taught in school that the culture in which he has been reared is
not important or valid. The Subcommittee recognized that such a
coercive assimilation policy, denigrating and seeking to abolish
cultural differences, frustrates Indian children and leads 'the
community and the child [to] retailiate by treating the school as
an alien institution.' Id., at 21. At least in part as a result of
such alienation, American Indians in both public and Federal
schools have a dropout rate twice the national average. Id., at IX.
Only 33% of Indians over the age of 25 have completed high school,
and the median number of school years completed by this group is
only 9.-8.7 Even when an Indian youth nominally remains in school,
his achievement level is generally 2 to 3 years below that of white
students in the same grade, and the Indian child falls
progressively further behind the longer he remains in school.
[
Footnote 8]
The issues in this case are far from trivial. I would grant
certiorari.
Footnotes
Footnote 1 The suspension
was stayed by a preliminary injunction of the District Court which
apparently ran from May 1, 1972, to June 5, 1972, and apparently
also by a stay entered by the Court of Appeals which ran from July
6, 1973, to September 4, 1973. Respondent claims that the
suspension of petitioners was not permanent, but this is
contradicted by the Court of Appeals opinion.
Footnote 2 Petitioners claim
that 'Respondents admitted that petitioners' traditional hairstyle
has never caused any disruption in the school.' Respondents do not
contradict this statement, but only assert that the regulation on
length of hair 'bears a rational relationship to a legitimate state
objective, i. e., that of instilling pride and initiative among the
students leading to scholarship attainment and school spirit and
morale.'
Footnote 3 See S.Rep.No.
91-501, 91st Cong., 1st Sess., 12; cf. Special Education
Subcommittee of the National Council on Indian Opportunity, Between
Two Milestones 69 (1972).
Footnote 4 S.Rep.No. 91-501,
91st Cong., 1st Sess., 12.
Footnote 5 See id.,
13-14.
Footnote 6 'Many school
administrators and teachers consider Indian pupils inferior to
white students, and thus expect them to fail, both in school and in
life.
'A. An anti-Indian attitude is often
prevalent in white communities in which Indians receive public
school education.
'B. Many school districts relegate
Indians to the lowest level in their tracking systems.
'C. Some administrators refuse to
cooperate with the Indian community in their school district and
discourage or do not permit Indian participation in
decisionmaking.
'D. Indians are often promoted each
year regardless of grades just so they can be kept in school, thus
assuring the local district of receiving Federal aid because of the
presence of Indian students. One public school district goes so far
as to falsify indian achievement-test results because the students
were so far behind national norms that 'it just wouldn't look
good.'
'E. Teachers and administrators are
often insensitive to Indian values and ignorant of Indian culture.'
Id., at 53.
Footnote 7 Bureau of the
Census, Subject Report: American Indians, PC (2)-1F, at 18 (Table
3) (1973).
Footnote 8 S.Rep.No. 91-501,
91st Cong., 1st Sess., ix; see Comptroller General of the United
States, Report to the Congress: Opportunity to Improve Indian
Education in Schools Operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs 10
(1972).
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