HARRISBURG, Pa. (RNS) On the day President Obama addressed the nation’s schoolchildren, a middle school student donned an anti-abortion T-shirt to protest Obama’s proposed overhaul of the nation’s health care system.
The student wore the “Abortion is not Healthcare” T-shirt without incident until his fifth-period teacher sent him to the principal’s office. He was ordered to turn the shirt inside out because it might offend other students.
The boy’s father, William Boyer of New Cumberland, Pa., filed suit Monday (Oct. 5) against the West Shore School District, alleging that his son, E.B., was unfairly censored by school officials on Sept. 8.
Neither district officials nor their lawyer wanted to comment on the lawsuit because they had not seen it, said Rob Cox, an attorney with Eastburn & Gray, the law firm that represents the school district.
Valerie Burch, a staff attorney with the Pennsylvania chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the student’s T-shirt represented political speech, the most protected form of speech, even inside schools.
If the district does not have a dress code that prohibits wearing T-shirts, then it has to permit this one, she said.
“Student-speech law has developed a lot … but one thing that is still plain and clear as day is that political speech like the T-shirt … is highly protected, even within schools,” Burch said. “I don’t see how they can prohibit this.”
Boyer’s suit claims the district’s policies regarding student expression, dress and grooming are unconstitutional and that the censorship of religious and political speech violates the First and 14th amendments to the Constitution.
The district’s dress-and-grooming policy prohibits clothing “which creates a hostile educational environment or evidences discriminatory bias or animus” or displays “inappropriate words.”
Boyer is seeking to have the district’s policies struck down and to remove any references to disciplinary action from his son’s record. He also is seeking damages such as court costs and attorneys’ fees.
