Here’s another case of a school administrator not understanding the First Amendment. A student was reprimanded and ordered to cover up a t-shirt she wore that read “All the cool girls are lesbians.” And even the chair of the school board recognizes the problem:
A Lynn English High School student reprimanded for wearing a t-shirt which read “All the cool girls are lesbians,” set off a debate during Thursday’s School Committee meeting on the school dress code and how it is enforced.
“I believe if the student wanted to make a big fuss she could,” said Mayor and School Committee Chairman Judith Flanagan Kennedy.
Kennedy told committee members Thursday that she received a letter from a student who was asked by one of the vice principals to cover her t-shirt and never wear it again. The student, who was not named, felt she had been wronged and Kennedy agreed.
“I did some legal research on this and I believe she is right,” Kennedy said. “I don’t believe the school had the authority to ask her to cover it up.” …
In the letter, the student said she was sitting in the cafeteria at lunch when a teacher told her to show Vice Principal Joseph O’Hagan her shirt. O’Hagan, she wrote, agreed with the teacher that the shirt was inappropriate. When she asked why, the student said she was told, “Because it’s political and offensive to some people.”
“Well, frankly I’m the one who feels offended,” the girl wrote in the letter, a copy of which Kennedy provided to The Item.
She said there are a number of girls who wear shirts that read “I love boys.” She also said that she believes if a student wore a shirt that read “Straight don’t hate,” it would go unnoticed.
But English Principal Thomas Strangie said Friday that isn’t true.
“We wouldn’t allow anything of that nature,” he said.
Strangie said a student can be made to cover up a shirt that is deemed disruptive, “and that (shirt) could have been disruptive. It was nothing against her.”
Strangie is clueless. You can’t make a serious argument for why that shirt would be disruptive, and that’s the only way to make his actions constitutional under Tinker, the controlling court precedent. Eugene Volokh, one of the top first amendment experts in the country, responds:
Of course, at this point this is just an allegation by the girl; but if it’s accurate, then the school’s actions violate the First Amendment, unless there’s some showing that the T-shirt had materially disrupted class, led to fights, or posed a demonstrable risk of doing either. The mere possibility that the T-shirt might be disruptive, absent some real evidence that disruption was likely, is not sufficient to justify restricting it. Of course, I take the same view as to anti-homosexuality T-shirts.
So do I.
33 comments
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exdrone
March 17, 2012 at 11:01 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Maybe the VP thought the t-shirt’s message was accurate and didn’t want the female students to start experimenting until college.
LightningRose
March 17, 2012 at 11:09 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The shirt is disruptive because the principal causes a disruption when he sees the shirt.
Okay, got it.
AJS
March 17, 2012 at 11:27 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
They get around precisely this sort of problem in other countries by having all pupils wear school uniform.
baldape
March 17, 2012 at 12:03 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
As a high school teacher, I have the minority opinion (in my school, at least) that enforcement of the dress code is much more disruptive than anything the kids could possibly wear.
I had a student wearing neck-to-ankle bright yellow spandex. It might as well have been paint. Of course the boys noticed, but it really did not disrupt instruction.
michaelbrew
March 17, 2012 at 12:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Yeah, I’m not sure if it’s such a cut and dry case. The “disruptive” descriptor is a bit vague, and I’ve seen people asked to cover up or change their clothing for far less controversial (and more heterosexual) messages. Fact is, what’s inappropriate is often at the discretion of the teachers, and I could see where a teacher might be reasonably concerned about distraction even if they agree with the message.
sundoga
March 17, 2012 at 12:16 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
AJS, it doesn’t help. I was brought up in a uniform required area, an the problem just becomes stickers on bags or decorations on notebooks. Teenagers want to be able to express their beliefs – and it’s perfectly right that they should.
Modusoperandi
March 17, 2012 at 12:52 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
sundoga “Teenagers want to be able to express their beliefs – and it’s perfectly right that they should.”
No, no, no! They shouldn’t have beliefs. Until their parents and pastor decide what they are.
George W.
March 17, 2012 at 1:19 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
True story:
When I was in high school, I twice was asked to remove a t-shirt I was wearing.
Once was a Marilyn Manson shirt where he was wearing that suit with the boobs, in a crucifixion pose. The other was for wearing a political party shirt that I got at a political rally. At the time the party in question was the provincial governing party and the schools support staff was about to vote on a strike.
During the same school year, a student wore a shirt that had a caricature of the Trix bunny on it that said “Silly Faggot, Dicks Are For Chicks!” He wore it all day without incident.
Unbelievable.
tomh
March 17, 2012 at 1:35 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
michaelbrew wrote:
“Inappropriate” is not the legal standard. Read the excerpt from Volokh above. Whether the shirt is “materially disruptive” is what matters, and there must be some evidence that this is the case, more than just someone’s intuition. You may have seen students told to cover up less controversial messages, but all that means is that their First Amendment rights were probably being violated.
plutosdad
March 17, 2012 at 1:41 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I remember in high school sometimes kids would wear shirts that said “shit happens” or something, and a teacher would say “go home and change” and the kids would say “no, it’s our first amendment right!” and the teachers would roll their eyes and walk away.
I’m not equating her shirt to ones with swearing; I’m saying that every time they actually punish a kid for something instead of letting it go, they turn it into a bigger issue. The adults need to start acting like adults.
peterh
March 17, 2012 at 2:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Streisand effect much?
Michael Heath
March 17, 2012 at 2:10 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
AJS writes:
So you’re for creating barriers to speech? I don’t see a problem with the exception of an ignorant school official. Yet you argue for punishing students and restricting their freedom by restricting them to only government-issued clothing. Not because of misbehavior not by the students, but instead by the government. Do you not recognize how illogical your advocacy is?
tacitus
March 17, 2012 at 2:16 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Many British schools don’t have school uniforms, or they allow older children more leeway, but most of them ban clothing that has anything other than a small logo on it — no other lettering is allowed. That would seem to me to be the best solution.
The problem with allowing “All the cool girls are lesbians” is that you also have to allow “All the cool girls are straight” as well which, in some cases, could be worn to intimidate or bully girls that are accused, suspected, and/or taunted as being gay. Likewise, if there are a couple of atheist/Jewish/Muslim girls in a class that are already being picked on, what do you do if another kid starts coming to school with “All the cool girls are Christians” on their shirt?
And what about “All the cool boys are mulatto” — does that just cause people to smile or is it racist? Almost certainly the former, but then, if another kid arrives in school with “All the cool boys are white”, what is that? If you ban one as racist, it would be tough not ban the other.
I fully understand the difference between a slogan that’s meant to highlight a cause and one that is used to bully or oppress, but in cases where they are two sides of the same coin and you have kids/parents who believe their side of the coin is as equally valid as the other, you run the risk of a escalating slogan war breaking out. Better just to ban them all in the first place.
nanceconfer
March 17, 2012 at 3:21 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I don’t get it. Did the cool girls complain about being outed?
Aquaria
March 17, 2012 at 4:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
#13
Shutting down speech doesn’t really do anything in America. The answer to speech here is more speech, not less.
Sheesh, when I was in jr high and high school in the 70s–in East Texas, no less–kids wore T-shirts to school that sported giant pot leaves and the word “Cocaine” done in Coca-Cola script. There were Smith & Wesson shirts, Jesus shirts, Confederate flag shirts, MLK/Malcolm X shirts, shirts for assorted music groups, crazy personalized shirts sporting in-group humor including a group of nerds who called themselves the “7″ club, with the alternate slogan on the back of, “What every woman wants”, which of course inspired the “14″ club with the slogan on the back of, “I don’t fold mine in half for nobody!”
This seriously went on in the 70s, and we all just rolled with it. We weren’t any more or less violent than kids today. If anything, all the shirts started blurring together after a while. I can’t remember too many of them after about my sophomore year. Other than the 7/14 club t-shirt rivalry from my junior or senior year, which I still think is funny, in a stupid juvenile humor way.
The only thing that would get you sent home back then was shirts with explicit language or graphic sex on it. Moreover, the best part about letting teenaged idiots wear things like Confederate flag or Styx shirts was that it was a bonus to have people display their stupidity or bad taste so you could know who to avoid.
I never cease to be appalled that kids are being told what to wear at all these days.
Aquaria
March 17, 2012 at 5:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Oh–explicit and graphic back then included racist language and violent imagery.
Markita Lynda—it's Spring after the Winter that wasn't
March 17, 2012 at 6:49 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
For “disruptive,” read “unpopular with the majority or the teachers.”
timberwoof
March 18, 2012 at 3:46 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Most school administrators really are idiots. Looking back on their behavior while I was in school, I’m convinced that many of them are small-egoed twits who exert their powers at school to compensate for their feelings of inadequacy.
In junior high school I was once called into the principal’s office for (gasp!) having hair longer than the collar of my shirt. I asked why this rule existed. The principal explained to me what when adolescent boys let their hair get long, they end up joining together in packs to roam the halls and cause trouble. I had never seen or heard of this sort of thing happening, and indeed found it to be explicitly false when we moved to a different state where the school had no such rule. My assessment of this total dork was that he was a total dork. (In the end, the joke is on him. I turned out gay and now I favor fashionably short hair.)
davem
March 18, 2012 at 4:13 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Having worn school uniform until 18, I’m really at a loss for words here. Barrier to speech? WTF is that a barrier? If I had an opinion, I expressed it, and didn’t need a stupid T-Shirt to do so.
Government-issued clothing? What drugs are you on? It was school, not prison! It was bought from a local store. It had the advantage of making the rich kids and the poor kids the same, and wasn’t distracting. Around here, all the school kids still wear uniform. It’s a non-issue; also noticeable that the schools who enforce it get better teaching results.
michaelbrew
March 18, 2012 at 4:21 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@timberwoof
Ha. I was called to the principal’s office all the time in my eighth grade school. Got it twice for wearing my prescription sunglasses to school when my regular ones got broken (I didn’t break them twice, they just got impatient with me). Also got sent to the principal’s office for a Vulcan salute. And for not going to church. That last one was, I’m pretty sure, a 1st amendment right violation, but what did I know? Oh, and got suspended for bringing a gun to school. Didn’t even own a gun, but there you have it.
Michael Heath
March 18, 2012 at 5:53 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
davem writes:
My point had nothing to do with you personally, but to all students, individually; re your @ 3:
School uniforms prohibit students from expressing themselves by leveraging what they wear. The exercise of verbal speech is also a red herring here as you frame it, but is an issue in another way. By using our clothing to express ourselves, we generate more speech by others as a response, which you argue in your post @3 should be prohibited, that it’s “a problem”. In fact, what we wear is a primary method we use to express ourselves. Just because you don’t care to be prohibited from expressing your right in this manner is not a coherent justification to argue all other students should also suffer from such a prohibition. Yet, I’m on the one supposedly on drugs.
davem writes:
Whoosh. First off, your point about how you got your clothing is irrelevant since you didn’t raise your own personal situation but instead you promoted, “all students” @ 3, specifically:
It’s cowardly to switch from advocacy for all students to your own personal history merely to escape responding to my rebuttal while maintaining your position. And it’s irrelevant on how the logistics of getting government-mandated clothing works, the net effect is that you advocate wearing government-issued clothing, where your prison analogy actually works, contra your claim. In fact I’d argue your proposal that students be required to wear school uniforms in order to alleviate speech you claim is, “a problem” is far more repugnant than prison-mandated clothing.
And it’s also a failure in character to avoid responding to the meat of my criticism of your original post. That being your claim that it’s a problem when students express themselves, where you argue that a government official unconstitutionally denying a student their speech rights should by responded to by denying all students the right to express themselves by what they wear.
Tualha
March 18, 2012 at 8:26 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Well, Tacitus (#13), couldn’t the exact same arguments be used to suppress all speech, signs, letters to the editor, etc.? After all, someone might say “God hates fags” or something hateful like that. Or put it on a sign. And that would hurt the feelings of gay people, and could be used to intimidate them and bully them. So clearly, we need to outlaw all speech, all signs, writing, etc. Right?
Or do you mean just in schools? Because, clearly, we want to make sure students learn that school is the one place they can’t express their views freely. No, it’s best that they only do that out in the real world, not in an environment intended for education. That’s what education’s all about – making sure that everyone learns to think the same way, the one right way.
Right?
Childermass
March 18, 2012 at 8:56 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Of course the t-shirt is disruptive by definition:
disruptive. Adj. Something right-wing kooks, esp. religious-right bigots, disagree with.
wheatdogg
March 18, 2012 at 10:25 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
There was a case in Louisville (KY) a few years aback when a boy wore a dress to his high school. Predictably, he was called into the principal’s office because of his “inappropriate attire.” The kid then pointed out that the dress met all the school dress code rules — not too short or tight, etc. — and that the rules said nothing about which gender could wear dresses.
They still sent him home. I’m not sure what the outcome was, however.
School administrators also have no sense of humor.
FlickingYourSwitch
March 18, 2012 at 12:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Was the message on the T-shirt political in nature?
dingojack
March 18, 2012 at 12:23 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
How about this for a compromise –
no t-shirts with messages except those that are demonstrably true.
If this young lady can prove that all females who are romantically or sexually attracted to other females, everywhere in the universe, have a slightly lower than normal core body temperature, then sure…
Dingo
—–
No, I’m not serious.
tomh
March 18, 2012 at 12:35 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
davem wrote:
Did poor families get any aid in buying uniforms? I’ve had some experience with uniforms also, and buying them can be a burden when every dollar matters.
baldape
March 18, 2012 at 2:23 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Uniforms are sometimes cheaper than buying regular clothes, but I suppose that depends on what kind of regular clothes they are buying and whether they can afford to buy anything at all.
I agree that uniforms don’t solve much, though. No matter how complete the uniform requirement is (and I would most emphatically include shoes, if I were defining the uniform) kids will find a way to individualize, and some teachers will find a way to get bent out of shape over it.
What teachers, administrators, and some others need to understand it this; kids need to rebel against somebody. If they can do it in a way that is not actually harmful to themselves or to anyone else, that’s great. Sometimes we need to give them a hard time about silly things like letting their underwear show so they can feel like they are defying us. But we (teachers, parents, etc.) need to remember who are the adults. And that the kids will grow out of it once they have been allowed to forge their own identities.
tacitus
March 18, 2012 at 5:03 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Our school (in Glasgow, Scotland) used to organize a sale of second-hand school clothing donated by parents just before the start of each school year. My parents weren’t particularly poor, but the sale was still useful in defraying the costs of dressing three kids in school uniforms.
tacitus
March 18, 2012 at 5:09 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Just in schools. There are plenty of other ways in which kids can be encouraged to express and debate their views in school, both in class and during breaks and extra-curricular activities. My school had a school uniform, but was perfectly happy for the kids to express themselves through talk and debate.
I’m actually not that fussed either way, but I see absolutely not problem if a school wants to ban all clothing with slogans on them — across the board — especially if it’s a way to prevent themselves from being sued by one side or another for selective banning. If enough time and money is spent on actually educating the kids properly, their appreciation of free speech will not be a problem.
sundoga
March 18, 2012 at 6:35 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Where I went to school (West Australia) the uniforms were cheaper then other basic clothing, and you got a government subsidy for them with your tax cheque each year.
democommie
March 19, 2012 at 6:19 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“Where I went to school (West Australia) the uniforms were cheaper then other basic clothing, and you got a government subsidy for them with your tax cheque each year.”
That is not the case in the U.S., afaia.
School uniforms were required in my high school and for a lot of students they were like gym clothes. They got cleaned once a month (on that day students could wear “appropriate non-uniform clothing) and I think the only people who liked the program were those who owned the dry cleaners about two blocks from the HS, who were nice, tithing parishoners.
Uniforms, btw, did not cut down on the typical thuggery practiced by my fellow students.
Pierce R. Butler
March 19, 2012 at 11:41 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
After a certain church stirred up some trouble by having kids go to school wearing “Islam is of the devil” t-shirts, our school board (purely by coincidence) set up a dress code banning all clothing with pictures or letters: students can wear any color they want, but each garment has to be one solid color.
I still want to know how either stripes or spots cause disruption.