School forbids anti-abortion t-shirt




The McSwain junior public high school in Merced, California, has forbidden one of its students from wearing an anti-abortion t-shirt -- citing a violation of its school dress code banning any "suggestion of tobacco, drug or alcohol use, sexual promiscuity, profanity, vulgarity, or other inappropriate subject matter." The "inappropriate subject matter" phrase is enormously vague and arbitrary but that seems to be what they think catches the t-shirt. It is too vague to be constitutional. What if criticism of Obama is seen by the school as "inappropriate" (which it probably is)? The young lady, Anna Amador, who wore the shirt is now suing the school. Eugene Volokh has the legal arguments:

"That strikes me as a clear First Amendment violation under the Supreme Court's decision Tinker v. Des Moines School Dist. (1969). If junior high school students have a constitutional right to wear a black armband to protest the Vietnam War, at least until there's some serious evidence that the armband is likely to cause substantial disruption, they must have an equal right to wear a T-shirt to protest abortions.

And nothing in the school district's motion suggests that the student was ordered to change shirts because of a risk of disruption; the school district apparently thinks that it can just categorically ban any T-shirts that deal with this "inappropriate" "subject matter." One might argue, as Justice Thomas has (and as Justice Black before him had), that Tinker should be overruled; but it's the law, and school districts should comply with it.

Source

Note: The picture above illustrates the shirt, not the plaintiff.


Posted by John Ray.