In December, 1965, a group of adults and students decided to publicize their opposition to the Vietnam conflict by wearing black armbands during the holiday season and by fasting December 16 and New Year's Eve. Several of the students present had engaged in similar activities in the past, and they decided to participate in this activity.

The principals of the Des Moines schools heard about the plan and, on December 14, adopted a policy that forbade the wearing of an armband to school. Students who refused to remove such armbands would be suspended until they complied.

On December 16, several students who knew about the regulation wore armbands to school: Paul Tinker, 8 years old and in the second grade, Hope Tinker, 11 years old and in the fifth grade, Mary Beth Tinker, 13 years old and in junior high school, and Christopher Eckhardt, a 15-year-old high school student. The following day, John Tinker, a 15-year-old high school student, wore his armband to school.

The students were suspended and were told not to return to school unless they removed their armbands. They stayed away from school until after New Year's Day, when the planned period for wearing the armbands had expired.

Several incidents took place on the day the students wore the bands. There were comments and warnings by other students, some poking fun at them and an older football player warned other students they had better let the protestors alone.

The suspended students, through their fathers, filed a complaint with the United States District Court, asking for an injunction ordering the school officials not to punish them. In addition, they sought nominal damages—a small or token sum of money, usually $1.00, to show that legal injury has been suffered.

In a criminal case, proof is necessary beyond a reasonable doubt, but since this was a civil proceeding, the attorneys for the Tinker children only had to prove by a fair preponderance of the evidence that their side was right.

The plaintiffs argued, in the first place, that the wearing of armbands was the equivalent of speech and was thus protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The First Amendment prohibits Congress from abridging freedom of speech, and the Supreme Court has expanded this prohibition to states under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment ("No State shall ... deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law..." by interpreting liberty' to encompass the fundamental rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.

The second line of argument was that the action of the school authorities was capricious, arbitrary, and unreasonable because it simply singled out one form of expression—the black armband—rather than prohibiting the wearing of all controversial insignia. Furthermore, the administrators had permitted the wearing of political campaign buttons, and even the Iron Cross, in the schools. The action of the school authorities would have been understandable if they could show that trouble might ensue in the school. However, the school system did not have a history of disruptions and, in any event, a few armbands in a school system of 18,000 students, the plaintiffs argued, did not warrant the action of the school administrators.

The defendants responded with equally effective arguments. Amendment X of the Constitution vests the states with power over the educational system. Acting in the name of the state and with the powers vested in them, school authorities have the responsibility to take measures to protect the health, welfare, and safety of the students under their supervision.

The school regulation against black armbands was necessary to preserve discipline in the school. The Vietnam War was a divisive conflict marked by public protest meetings, draft card burnings, and a march on Washington. A former student of one of the high schools had been killed in Vietnam and some of his friends might have reacted strongly to the wearers of armbands. Students at one of the schools had been heard to say that if black armbands were permitted, they would wear armbands of another color. The situation seemed rife with rumors of trouble and the school administrators were best qualified to judge the situation. The regulation against the black armbands had been necessary to maintain discipline in the school and to prevent any interference with learning.

The plaintiffs' argument prevailed. The decision was seven to two in favor of Tinker. The Court noted,

"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 operation of the school,' the prohibition cannot be sustained." The Court further observed, "In our system, state operated schools may not be enclaves of totalitarianism. School officials do not possess absolute authority over their students. Students in school as well as out of school are persons' under our Constitution. They are possessed of fundamental rights which the State must respect, just as they themselves must respect their obligations to the State. In our system, students may not be regarded as closed-circuit recipients of only that which the State chooses to communicate. They may not be confined to the expression of those sentiments that are officially approved. In the absence of a specific showing of constitutionally valid reasons to regulate their speech, students are entitled to freedom of expression of their views."