When Mary Beth Tinker was an eighth grader in 1965, she was suspended from school. With a group of classmates in Des Moines, Iowa, she wore a black armband in support of a truce in the Vietnam War—an act that spurred a national debate and led to the landmark 1969 Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, which established the free speech rights of public school students forever after.  

On March 26, Tinker sat down with Becca Delbos, SPA/BA ’26, president of the ACLU at American University, in the Mary Graydon Student Center. The discussion was organized by the Kennedy Political Union and the ACLU at AU as part of the 250+ at American initiative.

One of Tinker’s role models growing up, she told Delbos, was her father, a Methodist pastor who later became involved with the Quakers. In his town in Atlantic, Iowa, in the 1950s, public swimming pools were segregated. Tinker remembered her father advocating for integration. “He was put out of his church,” she said, “and lost his job. “He taught us by his example that you’re supposed to speak up when things aren’t right. You’re not supposed to just stand by and watch. That’s a way to live.”

Tinker lives by her convictions. “There’s always somebody around to say ‘Life’s not fair,’” she said, but that’s no way forward. “You should never get used to life not being fair.” Tinker, who was particularly shy growing up, knew in her bones that standing up for free speech was what she was called to do. 

“We need to have respectful dialogue,” she asserted, “even with people that we disagree with.” Her work is grounded in that capaciousness: “The Tinker case is really about controversy,” she said. “It says that we must be able to talk about controversial things in school. Otherwise, we don’t have school, we don’t have education, and we don’t have democracy.” 

Central to this work, Tinker said, is community building. “It’s important to connect with others and try not to be isolated.” From those relationships, she insisted, students can find their voice—a voice of hope. “I’m going to keep working towards that new world, which I believe is coming,” she said, “but we have to make it happen.” 

For Tinker, one’s ideals are what defines them, and to stand for something, in the face of insurmountable obstacles, is what freedom looks like. “You don’t always win, but it’s still a good way of life.”