CNSNews reports:
A Virginia high school says a student’s pro-life T-shirt violates the school’s ban on using profane or obscene language.
The shirt says, “Abortion is Homicide. You will not silence my message. You will not mock my God. You will stop killing my generation. Rock for Life.”
An assistant vice principal at Denbigh High School in Newport News told the student to stop wearing the shirt . . . .
It seems to me quite clear that wearing the pro-life T-shirt is constitutionally protected, just as the wearing of anti-war symbols during the Vietnam War was found to be protected in Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. School Dist. (1969), at least unless there’s concrete evidence of some significant disruption (or likely disruption) that the T-shirt has caused. Under Bethel School Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser (1986), the school may also restrict profanity and vulgarity, when the restriction is “unrelated to any political viewpoint,” but that pretty clear doesn’t apply here. If the full facts are as the story describes (and of course often there are some items that don’t come out at first in such stories), and if indeed there’s no evidence of sufficient disruption, then this seems a pretty clear First Amendment violation.
Thanks to reader Matthew Bower for the pointer.
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