Tinker tinkers with social media issues

By Kendall Burchard

              The Tinker Tour, a nation-wide initiative to educate America’s youth about First Amendment rights, visited the University of Oklahoma on April 10, 2014. Mary Beth Tinker, namesake of the landmark Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District that gave students Free Speech within schools, spearheaded the movement with her friend, attorney Mike Hiestand.

              First Amendment protections have been a controversial topic on OU’s campus recently.

On April 8, Brother Jed Smock, founder and president of Campus Ministry USA, preached his inflammatory sermons to passersby while the students from the Constitutional Studies Student Association filled out bingo cards featuring Smock’s known catch phrases. On April 7, The Atlantic released an article questioning whether social media prohibited students from the full Free Speech protections offered by the First Amendment.

In the article, Tinker offered her thoughts to The Atlantic about possible threats to student’s First Amendment rights due to the advent of social media.

Tinker deferred to Hiestand, an attorney for the Student Press Law Center, when asked about First Amendment protections pertaining to the Internet.

“There’s a fear factor that goes into it,” said Hiestand, “One of the things we’re saying is, let’s put together a course for administrators, like a social media 101, so you can tell them about what is a Twitter, and what is a tweet, everything that they have no clue about but they are just scared of.”

“If we can merge the rights that Mary Beth’s case gave with some of these new speech tools and kind of get administrators on board with that, and officials on board with that, some pretty amazing stuff could happen,” said Hiestand.    

            Tinker began standing up for her beliefs as a child, after learning from the examples of her politically active parents. Tinker said her parent’s fight against racial inequality inspired her to hold fast to her beliefs. 

            “My dad really hadn’t thought we should wear the arm bands anyway because it was ‘against the rules’,” said Tinker, “But I said, ‘But Dad! Look at how you stood up and spoke up!’ and then I think he understood.”  

Students came to the lecture not only for the extra credit offered by their professors, but also out of appreciation and curiosity for Tinker’s story. Junior Brandon Tomlin was impressed by Tinker’s audacity as a young girl.

“I don’t know what I was doing when I was 14, but I know I wasn’t fighting for my freedom of speech,” said Tomlin, “to see someone who’s that passionate, and who knows her rights and is willing to fight for her rights is really inspiring to me.”

Graduate assistant Rashmi Thapaliya was excited to see history come alive. However, she disagreed with Tinker about the Internet contributing to a decline of Free Speech protections.

“I think [the Internet] is helping, I think. It’s a good form for the students,” said Thapaliya.

After Tinker’s brief stay in Oklahoma concludes on April 11, she will continue the Tinker Tour by visiting various college and high school campuses from Kansas in April to Washington in May. Tinker will also deliver her first Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) talk in Brazil in April, and will be beginning her world tour in May.

Graduate assistant Rashmi Thapaliya discusses her opinion of the lecture and what she believes to be the most important civil rights and liberties as a citizen of Nepal.
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