Des Moines principals adopt preemptive ban on black armbands two days before students plan to wear them to protest the Vietnam War

Principals of Des Moines public schools met on December 14, 1965 and adopted a policy barring students from wearing black armbands — two days before a planned protest organized by the Tinker family, Christopher Eckhardt, and their parents. The principals knew about the protest in advance through a parent's call to the school district. Any student wearing an armband would be asked to remove it and suspended if they refused. The preemptive policy — adopted specifically to suppress a known upcoming protest — became the legal act the Supreme Court would later scrutinize for constitutional compliance.