First the Tinker Tour came to Kent State. Now Kent State has joined the Tinker Tour.
JMC Professor and Knight Chair in Scholastic Journalism Mark Goodman spoke to high school students and teachers at the 50th Annual Kettle Moraine Press Association Fall Conference in Whitewater, Wisc., on October 18, accompanying First Amendment icon Mary Beth Tinker as she tours the nation to talk about free expression, press freedom and civic education. Tinker and attorney Mike Hiestand of the Student Press Law Center, the tour’s presenting sponsor, spoke on the Kent campus on Oct. 1 as part of the Ohio Scholastic Media Association’s regional workshop.
“When Mary Beth and Mike asked me to join them for part of their tour, I enthusiastically agreed,” said Goodman. “I was honored to spend a couple of days in Wisconsin helping to share their message of the importance of the First Amendment.”
Tinker was the lead plaintiff in the landmark 1969 U.S. Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District. The case arose after she was suspended by her Des Moines, Iowa, school district for wearing a black armband to school to mourn those who died in the Vietnam War. The court upheld students’ First Amendment right to express themselves non-disruptively at school, and the precedent the case set remains to this day.
Goodman, a frequent speaker to groups of students and teachers, presented sessions on media law issues to some of the approximately 975 attendees at the conference. The Kettle Moraine Press Association serves high school publication staffs and their advisers in Wisconsin and Illinois.
Caption for photo:
JMC Professor Mark Goodman talks with Appleton North High School students Abigail Plankey and Paul Schaefer at the Kettle Moraine Press Association Fall Conference in Whitewater, Wisc., on Oct. 18. Goodman traveled to Wisconsin as part of the Tinker Tour, teaching students about media law and the First Amendment.
