Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District’s Empirical Analysis
1969
Citation profile
2,030 federal appellate · 709 district · 1,086 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 6,426 later decisions (247 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2026 · most notably Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York (1978), Connick v. Myers (1983)
2,030 federal appellate · 709 district · 1,086 state decisions — followed in 49 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Appellate journey
reviewedTinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (from Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Rochin v. People of California · Cantwell v. State of Connecticut · Meyer v. State of Nebraska · Pierce v. Society of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary Same
Cited together with Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School District 205 Will County Illinois · West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette · Keyishian v. Board of Regents of Univ. of State of NY · United States v. O'Brien · Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 6,426 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”
476 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“teachers, parents, and elected school officials to surrender control of the American public school system to public school students.”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“possessed of that full capacity for individual choice which is the presupposition of First Amendment guarantees,”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.