L. FULLER
Editor in Chief
Free speech heroine Mary Beth Tinker was sitting at the head of the table at The Brick Room on Sept. 28, and I was sitting to her immediate right. She had just finished her presentation in the Science Center about her experiences with the First Amendment. At a table that included six Fredonia faculty members, I was told to sit next to the woman who was the reason for this fancy dinner. Normally, this would have been nerve wracking. But Tinker has the charismatic ability to share a smile and talk to anyone about anything.
From the moment we started talking, Tinker was well aware — and totally into the idea — that she was going to become the subject of an article or a blog post of mine. She said she wanted to tell me an untold story of her time in the political spotlight.
To give a brief history, Tinker was the complainant in the United States Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District in 1969. A few years before, as a 13-year-old, she had taken part in a protest at her school against the Vietnam War by donning a black armband to class. When Tinker and the other protesters were punished for doing so, they claimed it was a violation of their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech. The court ruled in Tinker’s favor.
However, Tinker said she doesn’t have many memories of being at the Supreme Court. One would think that an event as monumental as a Supreme Court appearance would be lodged in her mind forever. But Tinker said there was a certain young lady on her mind instead.
“I heard about this folk dancing club or something on Saturday, and this girl named Amy invited me,” Tinker told me, as the rest of the dinner table engaged in other conversations. “So at the folk dancing club, there was this girl named Susie Shapiro. She was kind of aloof and mysterious, or something like that.
“So later on, she started making moves on me. I told you this was going to get racy,” remarked Tinker. “So basically, we started getting together, and I started having this relationship with Susie Shapiro.”
Tinker was a junior in high school in 1969, and she had moved to a different school — a new city completely. As a painfully shy child, adjusting to this bigger city school was a substantial change. Tinker said this new school was much more “sophisticated,” with racially integrated students and a relaxed dress code. But that didn’t mean she felt comfortable coming out.
“I never told people I was gay because I think I was afraid,” said Tinker. “After we wore the armbands, we had haters who were threatening us. I think I was afraid that they’d be back, and they wouldn’t like it if they knew that I was gay. So life moved on … ”
Tinker’s relationship with Shapiro didn’t last long. But when they were together, Shapiro was all Tinker could think about.
“When I got to the Supreme Court, I was thinking about Susie Shapiro,” said Tinker. “[Court] was kind of overwhelming. My brain kind of shut down and I could only concentrate on certain things.”
The theory that Tinker has developed is that because she was so shy, her brain used thoughts of Shapiro to shelter her from the immensity of her role in free speech history. The Supreme Court must have been an intense concept — let alone actual experience — for a 17-year-old.
“I was really immersed in [my relationship with Shapiro],” said Tinker. “Then, a couple weeks [after we got together] it was time to go to the Supreme Court. [But] who cared about that?”