Marjorie Heins on the Implications of the Tinker Casebr The New School - The New Schoolbr Nearly 40 years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that students do not shed their right to freedom of speech "at the schoolhouse gate." Administrators, therefore, could not prohibit them from wearing black armbands in silent protest of the Vietnam War.Over the next three decades, the court chipped away at the case, and last year, it ruled that administrators could punish a student for displaying the message, "Bong Hits 4 Jesus.