Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Yet another case of a school administration that is totally ignorant of the constitution. The Alliance Defense Fund has filed suit against the West Shore School District in Lewisberry, Pennsylvania for making a student remove a t-shirt that read "Abortion is not healthcare" on the day that Obama spoke to students around the country. The complaint (PDF) gives the school's policies:
First, "Policy 220: Student Expression," prohibits speech which "seek[s] to establish the supremacy of a particular religious denomination, sect, or point of view" and that which "contain[s] material otherwise deemed harmful to impressionable students."Second, "Policy 221: Dress and Grooming" prohibits "clothing which creates a hostile educational environment or evidences discriminatory bias or animus" or displays "inappropriate words."
None of those applies to this t-shirt except for the incredibly vague last standard, which can't possibly survive this lawsuit. And here's what happened:
E.B. wore his t-shirt to school with no disruption and with no problems until he was sent by his 5 period teacher to the Principal's office to see whether his t-shirt was "appropriate."Upon arriving at the Principal's office and relaying what his teacher told him to say, he was immediately ordered to remove his shirt because it might insult somebody.
This is a slam dunk. There's no way in hell this survives a motion for summary judgment by the plaintiffs.
Politics
Comments
I agree with your position and the ADF...but your title is terribly misleading. How do you parse "Abortion is not healthcare" into "Anti-Obama"?
Posted by: Shygetz | October 15, 2009 9:26 AM
Not only illegal, but just plain petty and stupid.
Simple rule of thumb for clueless school employees: If you all any t-shirts, then you will have to allow them all.
(About the only exception that I could think of would be porn, obscenities, or threats of violence on the t-shirts, but I am sure the general rules of conduct already cover those issues plus that really does not come up all that often anyways.)
Second rule of thumb: If the student can get to the fifth period without issue, it not likely to be disruptive.
Posted by: a lurker | October 15, 2009 9:54 AM
Shygetz @ 1 stated:
Plaintiff's perspective was that his t-shirt message was a protest against the President. Below in italics is the relevant section of the complaint. I'm not rebutting your point nor defending Ed's blog post title; merely providing what I found to be some interesting context to the complaint that's related to your query.
The President’s decision to give the speech created a national controversy, and
created many concerns within the Boyer home, for several reasons. First, the
national healthcare debate was in full force with many Americans, including
the Boyers, opposing the President’s proposed healthcare overhaul, especially
any funding of abortion. Second, the Boyers, like many others, felt that
President Obama was bypassing them and speaking directly to their children
without their permission. Third, parents like the Boyers were also concerned
with the original content of the President’s speech and the assignments that went along with the video, which asked students questions such as “What is the
President asking me to do?”; “Why is it important that we listen to the
President...? Why is what [he says] important?” The assignments included
having students “[w]rite letters to themselves about what they can do to help
the president. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate
later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.”
35. Like many others, the Boyers struggled with whether they should send their
children to school on that day.
36. E.B. attended school and decided to voice his religious viewpoint as it relates
to the issue of abortion.
Posted by: Michael Heath | October 15, 2009 9:54 AM
Oh, I have no doubts that the wearer's family was anti-Obama. But the t-shirt was not. I would understand the short-hand if the t-shirt contained some complex message that couldn't be summarized in a title (e.g. "School Censors Anti-Cap-and-Trade Legislations Without Bidding On Initial Emissions Permits"), but this could have been put equally succinctly and much more accurately as "School Censors Anti-Abortion T-Shirt" and I'm curious as to why Ed felt the need to eschew the obvious accurate title for the one he chose.
Posted by: Shygetz | October 15, 2009 10:07 AM
Not at all true lurker. There are a number of things that could be worn that aren't in any way vulgar, threatening, etc., but are still offensive. When students are in my room, they are a captive audience, forced to cohabit the educational environment. There are necessary limitations on free speech based on the conflicting rights to an education/free speech. A Confederate flag and "The South Shall Rise Again!" is a bit dodgy depending on the context, the same shirt with "I just want what my grandaddy owned" is, no question about it, unacceptable. A shirt with a Bible verse, fine, a shirt that says "God hates Fags," no go. It is a much more complicated issue.
This is also quite untrue. Personally, as an educator, I don't normally notice what my students are wearing. That doesn't mean what they are wearing is inappropriate, it simply means that I wasn't aware of it. If we took your argument to a logical, but very extreme position, then I could argue, "if the kid had a gun and no one really noticed and he wasn't disruptive until fifth period, then it should be okay if that student has a gun." The same argument could be made for just about any violation, drugs, alcohol, etc. It's nonsense to claim that something is "okay" because teachers earlier in the day didn't notice it. My non AP classes have 30+ kids in them, I am much more concerned about the kids participating, learning, the interaction in the classroom than I am about what "student A" happens to be wearing. Just because I don't happen to notice the kid in the 4th seat in the 3rd row has a questionable subject on their shirt doesn't make it any less a questionable subject.
Now, in this case, admin screwed up. The shirt isn't offensive, doesn't threaten violence, doesn't infringe upon the rights of other students or faculty. It does show a rather significant level of ignorance, but stupid isn't against the rules.
Posted by: dogmeatib | October 15, 2009 10:11 AM
Huh. In the tenth grade we had a kid that showed up with a "Protect our heritage" shirt on that showed the silhouette of a bunch of pointy guys hanging someone from a tree. He got to wear it 3 times on 3 seperate days before he finally got sent home for it and told not to wear it again. Clearly if he'd been in the wrong someone would've noticed right at the start of the school day. That poor boy's civil liberties were obviously violated.
Wonder if this kid's parents would be so fired up over freedom of speech if a kid in his class had worn a shirt with a rainbow flag on it or a pro-choice logo.
Hey, I wonder if the Alliance Defense Fund would be defending them? After all, they're only concerned with civil liberties for everyone, ammirite?
Posted by: JThompson | October 15, 2009 10:27 AM
"War is murder"
That's religious AND anti-Obama.
See?
Posted by: Juice | October 15, 2009 10:50 AM
Please, anyone paying any attention to "news" knows that the right wing promotes and propagates the false message that the health care reform bill will pay for abortions. It is not such a leap to tie it to anti-Obama sentiments.
As far as the President speaking directly to children: So What? Every president has done it. President Bush was doing it on 9/11. This whole idea was ridiculous in my opinion from the start and what happens, as usual, right wingers spread fear amongst themselves about what would be said. As if "stay in school" was some kind of indoctrination into Democratic dogma.
Posted by: MartyM | October 15, 2009 10:51 AM
Schools generally have dress codes, because they are allowed to decide what clothing might be "disruptive". I think a lot of dress codes are silly and just done so some teachers can exert control over other people, but I don't think that my high school would have allowed students to wear anything relating to abortion. If students are allowed to wear shirts like this (and they certainly should be allowed to), it seems a little silly to say that I can't wear a sleeveless shirt on a hot summer day because my shoulders might distract someone. Also, what if this kid wore this t-shirt to a school that requires uniforms? This brings up a bigger issue of dress codes in general.
Incidentally, abortion is health care if the pregnant woman is having serious complications from pregnancy that can only be fixed by abortion. Oh wait, I forgot. Women don't actually matter.
Posted by: catgirl | October 15, 2009 10:57 AM
I have had several friends who have been asked to remove t-shirts with "offensive" slogans in order to board an airplane, so I agree completely with your post.
However, Shygetz is absolutely correct in saying that your headline is misleading. You don't offer any context to why the shirt is Anti-Obama, instead Michael had to provide content from the complaint.
Posted by: Sean | October 15, 2009 10:58 AM
JThompson wrote:
For my purposes, I don't think it much matters. I support freedom of speech for everyone on an equal basis, so I agree with them in this case. Of course people are often hypocritical in such areas, on both sides, but I still stand up for both sides when they're in the right.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | October 15, 2009 10:59 AM
But, but, but, it's a lie!! An abortion IS healthcare AND murder, too, if you're a flag waving, cross carrying, commie.
Posted by: democommie | October 15, 2009 11:49 AM
I agree with dogmeatib on his points (except maybe his conclusion).
I don't see this as any different than any other dress policy. All dress policies try to justify themself by saying it is needed to maintain a "learning environment", and any dress that the school deems unacceptable, it could be by default unacceptable since that's the school's opinion. There are notable exceptions for protecting the cultures of certain religions/races/gender/etc, but if this dress doesn't fall into one of those categories, then it's up to the school.
What if the shirt had a picture of an aborted fetus on it? Would that change the argument? And if that is the case, aren't we just talking about different levels of the same thing?
And I may be completely (and embarrassingly) wrong on this point, but doesn't the Constitution not fully apply to minors? So they don't really have the same Constitutional rights as someone of age? I won't be surprised if I'm wrong, I just am curious enough to ask.
Posted by: Jordan G | October 15, 2009 11:58 AM
Everyone knows that Obama, and all liberals, want to kill your babies and grandparents, so the shirt is certainly anti-Obama.
Posted by: Owen | October 15, 2009 12:10 PM
I agree with those above that the student's mission or motivation isn't relevant, and with Ed that freedom of speech is paramount, especially for core political expression (and that includes abortion, religion, and health care). But I've noticed a change in schools' policies and behaviors, so we should expect to see more of these cases, not less.
It's almost always one administrator's or one teacher's error which the chain of command then chisels in stone. My administrators are constantly making mistakes like this (so far they have avoided public exposure or embarrassing lawsuits.) My journalism sophomores understand it better than they do.
It's a new, subtler Heckler's Veto, and it tends to come from us (liberals). Just because we perceive that a fifth grader has been pushed by parents into making ugly political statements doesn't give us the right to muzzle him; the fact is, stimulating a backlash from The Man is the tactic of a minority anyway and when we're The Man we should be smart enough to let it go. Sending your kid to school wearing an ugly slogan is a pathetic tactic but it's protected (and there are lots of actionable overreactions out there, almost all the result of bad principalling.)
Here's one: http://coloradoindependent.com/8932/aurora-fifth-grader-suspended-over-anti-obama-t-shirt
In my southern high school in the seventies I saw lots of trouble from 'uppity' black students making speech that claimed equality with us white kids. The nerve! Disruptions would result from this speech, and the black students were sometimes held responsible but more often urged to 'tone it down' or some such--classic heckler's veto. This was clearly Tinker territory, and my administrators knew it, and knew what Tinker said--yet they taught us bigoted kids that we could muzzle the blacks by creating a disruptive confrontation. The grownups' reflexive bigotry would take over, wrist-slaps were issued, the speech was suppressed or discouraged, and the black kids got angrier.
My direct observation now is that students are much less aggressive and much more flexible when confronted with views that conflict with their own. (some might call it apathy but I disagree. I see enlightened, patient, and thoughtful kids, and I'm in the mix now 25 years.) Far fewer direct student-to-student disruptions occur (at least in my hallways) when kids wear or say strong, sharp things within the core of protected political speech. Many of these are from the right: anti-gay religious statements or ugly counterfactual anti-Obama slanders. But the hecklers aren't getting as many bites. Kids are smarter than teachers.
One example is the Arizona high school kid who wore a fairly cryptic anti-gay shirt for two days; nobody responded. So he wrote a more direct statement on a piece of masking tape (see http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2008/02/13/1426/tshirt_02jpg) and finally got the disruption he was hoping for(and lost in the long run).
My school has a small number of black students, perhaps 6 percent. The election of Obama has had a galvanic effect on those kids, whose behavior and success in school has changed dramatically (for the better.) We also have a large upper-middle-class suburban population, and many of them embrace the Glenn Beck perspective. The other day I saw two black kids roll their eyes and move on when a white student made a pointedly (and false) anti-Obama slander directly to them. I let it slide but many teachers would not have done so--my standard response--one-on-one with the speaker--is "Your political speech is protected. That doesn't mean it reflects well on your character."
Often now I see (and it seems to be the case in the PA kid) teachers create the disruption when they field a quiet complaint from another student. It's a kind of silent anti-speech heckling to sic a teacher on a kid, a way of enshrining the popular educational notion that safety includes idea-comfort and institutional protection from contrary opinions, especially those that are phrased with a little zing. Now, instead of jumping the kid in the hallway or taunting him, some kids do exactly as they have been told: they tell a teacher they're uncomfortable. The teacher then perceives a disruption by creating one and sends the kid down to the office where the principals hear about a disruption (a kid sent out of class!) and proceed to fuck up and volunteer their name for a famous Supremes case ten years down the road, and, worse, offer Scalia another chance to make new law.
Invariably the student complaining and the teacher have the same opinion of the speech in question.
I'm reminded of recent opening salvoes in the online speech battle that the Supremes will someday have to settle (one hopes after Scalia and Thomas are safely gone.) Our intelligent administrators swear they don't comb through student Facebook accounts for photos or accounts of drinking or drug use, yet they routinely "notice" those photos and suspend students (so far only from extracurriculars as per the athletic 'pledge'--a higher standard for athletes.) So, my journalists ask, what's to stop us from gathering those photos ourselves, perhaps even shooting them surreptitiously at a party or photoshopping them up, then posting them on facebook and then printing them off and slipping them under your door? (the precise scenario took place in a neighboring high school resulting in students being dropped from athletic teams.)
ice9
Posted by: ice9 | October 15, 2009 12:16 PM
Actually, the compulsory nature of schools weakens the case for speech restrictions in my opinion. It's one thing to put restrictions on people in situations that people have an option of placing themselves in a nonpublic forum and quite another to put such restrictions on nonpublic forum where people are legally compelled to be. Evidence of actual disruption, not simply offensiveness which is being passed off as disruptiveness, should be required.
Posted by: MattXIV | October 15, 2009 12:29 PM
Ed, this is why I read the blog. It's about principle and not the politics, and when it comes to clear first amendment issues like the politically charged t-shirt, I think even the rights of students (generally subject to school policy) should be respected.
@ #1, the shirt is being called "anti-Obama" on the basis that there was clear intent to wear it to a rally.
Again, though, what the t-shirt was attempting to do is not relevant in this situation. What's relevant is the first amendment violation.
Posted by: JStein | October 15, 2009 1:12 PM
High schools are nice test cases for the 1st amendment, and commenters here have done a good job rounding up why:
- Students are compelled to be there.
- Students are non-adults without authority or power.
- State has an obligation to educate, and education requires
a conducive educational setting.
- Free expression of speech can create dissent, even anger,
which may interfere with a conducive educational setting.
On this last point, what about the idea that practicing the skill of being able to think, learn, and use one's mind effectively despite the distractions of others' t-shirt messages and the like is a very valuable skill to hone for use in the real world?
I think it is an open question, but an interesting pedagogical one. If the educational psychology evidence came down strongly on the side of such distractions being harmful to learning and the "meta-learning" skill of learning to tune out social irritants and focus on one's work, then I would think it would be irrational to favor the 1st amendment without at least some debate about boundaries for such distractions. That said, I would hope that the t-shirt in question here would fall clearly on the permissible side of the boundary in this case.
Posted by: cm | October 15, 2009 1:51 PM
As a former PA public school student, I have to say that I had to turn my t-shirts inside out many a time, even for silly things like a red "CCCP" shirt (how is that offending people?)
Sometimes, the dean just wants to feel like they are in charge and do things to make sure that you the student know that they are in charge.
Personally, I don't think this is something to sue over.
p.s. I noticed this a lot more after I started to grow my hair out. As a male with long hair, I became a "usual suspect" for random incidents at school, even though I was an AP "nerd herd" student.
Posted by: Seer | October 15, 2009 1:59 PM
Seer: Sometimes, the dean just wants to feel like they are in charge
I got paraded through the teacher's lounge by a headmaster as an example of a "bad seed" for wearing my school tie around my head and having my shirt untucked.
Now, this was totally my fault, and I should've got some detention or demerit for it. :) But what I noticed while I was in there was that the teachers weren't horrified by my behavior, they were horrified by the headmaster's, for denigrating me in front of all my teachers. In terms of perceived maturity, I didn't come out any worse for wear, but he sure did.
In the same way, I see these sorts of cases more as a commentary on the maturity of the teachers than on the maturity of the students. The kids are young - they're supposed to be idiots once in a while. Every adult knows those kids are trying to find their own way by rejecting parental authority. If you can't handle such immaturity, you shouldn't be in a room with 20+ 16-year-olds.
Posted by: eric | October 15, 2009 2:36 PM
W.r.t. the effects of T-shirt slogans on the learning environment, it seems to me that slogans such as "$GROUP is $BAD_EPITHET" clearly creates a hostile environment for members of $GROUP (eg. gays, racial minorities, political alignments, etc.) and could be legitimately banned. But slogans on themes like "$GOVT_POLICY is a Bad Idea" or even "$POLITICIAN is stupid" fall under allowable expression of opinion on public affairs (even though they often include the unintentional subtext "The Wearer is an Ignorant Dork"). I don't accept that such expressions disrupt the school (except as providing an excuse for Heckler's Veto, which should never be respected).
Posted by: Eamon Knight | October 15, 2009 2:47 PM
CM: "it would be irrational to favor the 1st amendment without at least some debate about boundaries for such distractions."
We've had that debate; there's a lot of settled law on it.
The essential question for me is the classic control problem in a school. Admittedly, I'm in a high school, and one with a fairly liberal atmosphere, but it's still typical of all schools for The State--admin, teachers, etc.--to seize all the power they can get away with. They have a broad palette of justifications for that seizure, and many times the incident is not taken outside the school because parents automatically support authority, or more than one rule applies, or students are intimidated into not pressing for even the attenuated rights they have (and the court says they have) in a high school. That's fine with me; I will probably consider those options when my kids get crosswise with The Man (which should happen in 3- 2- 1...)
A "CCCP" shirt is clearly disruptive and clearly a piece of political speech, whether it's humorous or serious. If an administrator made you turn that shirt inside-out then he violated your first amendment rights both by principal and by settled law. Either you didn't know or didn't care enough to fight it; case closed, damage minimal. Those minor dramas are played out in schools every day. My point is that the typically conservative drift of such events has shifted with the political fortunes of the nation, and I hope that we are alert enough to avoid making the same mistakes from the other side of the political spectrum.
In 1977 our high school, in a fit of civic activism, convened a student senate and gave it some token powers. My friends and I, die-hard members of the Model United Nations club, got ourselves elected because we detected the chance to do some real politics. The body was constituted mostly of the student council, eager little Chamber of Commerce types mainly, interested in working with the administration (read: puppets.) One small problem: the charter set the operation of the senate by Roberts Rules, and nobody knew Roberts like the Model UN kids. Our radical proposals--extend break by five minutes, I think one was--were shot down by innies afraid of offending the administration from whence their power and self-image flowed. Briefly disappointed, my friends and I proceeded to tie the thing in knots with points of order and points of personal privilege and abstentions in the order with rights of explanation. The Student Council president had a screaming, sobbing fit (which we considered reward well beyond an extra five minutes of break). They tried keeping us out, then kicking us out. One of my teachers threatened my grade if I attended; I went anyway. Finally the principal stepped in and shut the whole thing down.
We responded by bringing in our copies of Chairman Mao's Little Red Book--we were a good UN club and routinely took tough nations like China and South Africa--and quoting at length whenever we could to random people in the hallway. We wanted to protest by pissing off the conservatives, and boy did we succeed. At one point a brush-cut administrator of notoriously conservative opinions called a "civilized sit down" with us "man to man" to try to iron out "the problem". I wondered out loud why the Student Senate wasn't a "civilized sit down". Before the thing was finished he came across the table at me and had to be physically restrained. I remember what he said to this day: "I saw enough gooks over the sights of an M-16 in Vietnam to tolerate this behavior in my high school." Eventually civilized measures failed and we were threatened with suspension. For us, getting in to William and Mary was more important than Chairman Mao so that was the end of it. Throughout the whole episode none of us really cared; it was an exercise (like all of high school) in pushing boundaries and understanding limits.
ice9
Posted by: ice9 | October 15, 2009 2:58 PM
@17 and others: I understand that the student was planning to wear the shirt to an event of political implications. However, as the shirt protested a position that Obama did not claim to hold, and as it did not state or imply that Obama held that position, and as the actual position of the t-shirt can be easily summed up in the title, I am still mystified as to why Ed chose not to call this "School Censors Anti-Abortion T-Shirt". This is especially misleading as, in the complaint, the Plaintiff clearly identifies the shirt and the intended message as "pro-life" as opposed to "anti-Obama", claims the right to wear other similar "pro-life" shirts in the future, and claims protection for "religious speech."
I would like to know why Ed chose to title this post in this misleading manner.
Posted by: Shygetz | October 15, 2009 3:04 PM
@23: It's definitely a straw man, and I agree that the title should be different (I certainly expected a "secret Muslim" slogan on the t-shirt), but I think to ask "why?" is a little silly. It seemed pretty clear why Ed made the decision, though I don't agree with.
Certainly, if my explanation isn't sufficient, I'd like to hear some input from Ed on the issue.
Posted by: JStein | October 15, 2009 3:21 PM
Perhaps the title should have read, "Student denied right to protest Obama school speech with anti-Obama T-Shirt", rather than Ed's "School Censors Anti-Obama T-Shirt".
My version is not as pithy, therefore I think Ed's post title is fine given the framework of the story. Not perfect, and perhaps worthy of quibbling about, but certainly not worth raising a big fuss over - not that you are.
Posted by: Michael Heath | October 15, 2009 3:47 PM
@23: Exactly; I expected to see a "Where's the Birth Certificate" shirt, or maybe even something borderline controversial like a "Barak the Magic Negro" shirt.
Now given, I don't think it's worth making a big fuss over, but it's curious. Ed is usually very precise in his verbiage, and this was a bit startling. Not to mention that his stated intention was not to protest the speech, it was to protest abortion on the occasion of Obama's speech.
Posted by: Shygetz | October 15, 2009 4:14 PM
I screwed up my post at 25 to point it contradicts my point, it should have read (change in bold):
Perhaps the title should have read, "Student denied right to protest Obama school speech with anti-abortion T-Shirt", rather than Ed's "School Censors Anti-Obama T-Shirt".
My version is not as pithy, therefore I think Ed's post title is fine given the framework of the story. Not perfect, and perhaps worthy of quibbling about, but certainly not worth raising a big fuss over - not that you are.
Posted by: Michael Heath | October 15, 2009 4:35 PM
Jordan,
If I read this right, you are correct, high school students do not enjoy full constitutional rights. The basic argument has boiled down to the need to maintain a viable educational environment and the balance between the rights of the individual weighed against the rights of the group. I guess you could kind of look at it as a variation of the "fighting words" or "clear and present danger" aspects of 1st amendment law.
I'm not sure what you mean about my conclusion? It was only that administration botched this one, the kid did have the right to this expression of opinion regardless of the fact that it was wrong, stupid, etc., it couldn't legitimately be seen as either disruptive or threatening.
Posted by: dogmeatib | October 15, 2009 4:57 PM
Eamon @21: W.r.t. the effects of T-shirt slogans on the learning environment, it seems to me that slogans such as "$GROUP is $BAD_EPITHET" clearly creates a hostile environment for members of $GROUP (eg. gays, racial minorities, political alignments, etc.) and could be legitimately banned.
I don't think that's clear at all. What makes any negative comment automatically hostile? What you're essentially saying is that any negative opinion of any group cannot be voiced in school. I reject that notion. It would not allow meaningful argument or debate, which is healthy for both schoolkids and society in general. Because many perfectly legitimate and well-reasoned opinions of people are, well, negative.
In fact, I will go so far as to state that I think those who think negative opinions are automatically hostile are making an bad generalization based on an excessively overbroad definition of "hostile."
But evidently, If I printed that opinion on a t-shirt, I couldn't wear it to school. Its too hostile! What a world.
Apparel limitations should be about stuff like gang signs; items meant to provoke immediate violence or attack. Also items which reasonable people would agree have a high chance of provoking violence even if is not intended. Opinions that are merely 'negative' or offensive do not count. We should be trying to teach kids that free speech means rejecting the notion of 'fighting words,' not acting as if any negative opinion counts as such.
Posted by: eric | October 15, 2009 5:31 PM
@Ed: I agree, freedom of speech is the most important thing. The problem arises when you end up with a t-shirt war that probably isn't going to stop at a t-shirt war. In my example the kid with the white pride shirt was only ordered not to wear it again when there was a sudden surge of Malcom X shirts followed by large amounts of threats from both sides.
I'm guessing the school was worried they'd end up with a situation like that. The pro choice kids wear pro choice shirts, shitstorm follows, parents wonder why the school didn't stop it before it got started. The only way to do that is to stop the first one with a dress code...Since the kid admits he wore it to express his religious views on abortion, trying to stop the pro choice kids from wearing their shirts would violate separation.
The problem probably wouldn't have come from the pro-choice people...It would've come from the pro-lifers when the other side was allowed to speak freely and I wouldn't bet on violence not turning up.
Posted by: JThompson | October 15, 2009 6:04 PM
Where's Orly Taitz when you need her?
Posted by: Badger3k | October 15, 2009 7:08 PM
This is the "bible verse" t-shirt my son wore to his high school when the wingnuts were out in force. It quotes I Timothy 2:12: "Suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence." His progressive female teachers enjoyed it, and nobody gave him too much trouble.
Posted by: ER Doc | October 15, 2009 9:14 PM
Reply to JThompson @ 6: The Alliance Defense Fund only defends speech that it agrees with, so obviously, they would definitely NOT defend a kid who got in trouble for wearing a pro-choice shirt or one with a rainbow flag on it.
Posted by: daniel rotter | October 15, 2009 9:16 PM
"...the Boyers were also concerned with the original content of the President's speech..."
Off-topic, I know, but what "original content" is the ADF talking about here?
Posted by: daniel rotter | October 15, 2009 9:21 PM
daniel rotter, #34: Off-topic, I know, but what "original content" is the ADF talking about here?
They were concerned about the part that was to begin: "Look into my eyes. You are getting sleepy...."
Posted by: Chiroptera | October 15, 2009 9:31 PM
Anybody remember the "Bong hits for Jesus" banner incident. It has already been ruled by the courts. Precedent has been set. Children, even teenagers, have no free speech while on school property during school hours. Case closed.
Posted by: Bryan | October 15, 2009 11:42 PM
@28 dogmeatib
My statement about maybe not agreeing with your conclusion is just that I'm not sure the administration was wrong. It's been agreed that schools do have the ability to limit what the students wear, so we just disagree on where the line should be.
I don't have a problem with this shirt falling on the "no" side of the line, as long as the school is consistent in its judgement. I'd give the school the ability to draw the line where they see best (since it has to be their opinion- no one else can give them the line with any exactness), and then judge them based on their consistency of enforcement of the line.
So if this school said "no" to shirts in the past that were similar in levels of distraction, then I would say they'd be wrong to let the kid continue to wear the shirt, as that would be inconsistent. If they gave a pass to similar shirts in the past, then they were wrong for saying "no" about this one.
Posted by: Jordan G | October 16, 2009 9:24 AM
Oh dear, why does it seem like these things always end up in my backyard? I live in that school district and graduated from high school there.
As for Bong Hits for Jesus, didn't the court rule that it was not political speech and, therefore, was not protected? (I'm asking, not saying.) Which has led me to wonder, based on the court decision, couldn't a kid now make a compelling argument that by wearing a "Bong Hits for Jesus" T-shirt, that he is, in fact, making a political statement regarding First Amendment rights?
Posted by: Lauri | October 16, 2009 11:38 AM
As far as I know, children do not (and have not) enjoy the right to freedom of speech at school. I know I certainly did not.
As the school is acting legally 'in loco parentis' they have the same ability to curtail a student's speech as a parent would.
Posted by: Robyn | October 16, 2009 2:33 PM
Gotcha, no problem, was just curious because of the way you phrased it. My basic argument would be for a greater latitude for student political speech.
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Bryan, you're quite incorrect with this argument and interpretation. In its ruling, the Supreme court confirmed that students do have limited free speech rights, Roberts did so in his majority opinion. The reason the actions of the student in this case were not protected is because (in a 5-4 ruling) the court stated that they were not political but instead advocated drug use which directly undermined the anti-drug use message of the schools.
Posted by: dogmeatib | October 16, 2009 6:10 PM
Rhea County student dress code doesn't allow pictures or writing of any kind, so I'm somewhat bemused by discussions that wonder if the student's right to free speech includes this word or that phrase.
Rhea County, TN, home of the 1925 Scopes "monkey" Trial.
Posted by: Bill Ware | October 18, 2009 4:26 PM