The Supreme Court and My Hometown
In the Spring of 1983, three students from Hazelwood East High School near St. Louis, Missouri filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. They claimed that the school had violated their First Amendment rights. The case progressed through the federal courts until it arrived in the Supreme Court of the United States, where where application of the First Amendment to student publications was clarified and limited. Forty years later, in the Fall of 2023 and 2024, high school students from around the St. Louis region were selected to participate in a program that revisited the case in its entirety. Click on an image to explore the exhibit online.
Project Background
This national program called the Supreme Court and My Hometown, is an immersive, in-person civics education program for high school students that examines a Supreme Court case that originated in their hometown. Each program is co-sponsored by the local federal courts in partnership with the Supreme Court Historical Society. Here in St. Louis, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, and the Judicial Learning Center collaborated with the Supreme Court Historical Society to launch the program and have completed two separate cohorts. Both groups analyzed the factual and legal bases of the case, followed the case’s progression through the federal court system, and engaged in an in-depth exploration of the legal profession. The 2023 cohort researched and designed the panels now on exhibit in the Judicial Learning Center. The 2024 cohort interviewed and recorded oral histories of case participants and other experts.