5th Grader Suspended For Anti-Obama Shirt

as much as i may disagree with the shirt... i really do struggle with punishment on the grounds of "inappropriate" messages

"People can and will abuse this to the max."

Abuse what? The First Amendment?

What irks you the most was that the shirt was homemade and not a commercially sold one? Who cares?

The ACLU has to get on this and get the suspension revoked.

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How is a know-nothing shirt that says "Obama is a terrorist's best friend" at all equivalent? I am just having a hard time following your logic. That is not a death threat.

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Political speech is defended by the First Amendment. It's one of the guarantees of the US Constitution. It doesn't matter if the context is a father trying to stir up trouble. It doesn't matter.

I am also not interested in where "I would draw the line." It doesn't matter. It is illegal to yell fire in a crowded theater for a reason: people can die in a the rush of the ensuing panic. So that is where, legally, the line is drawn.

That shirt is stupid but not DISGUSTING in all caps. Suspension is not only uncalled for, it's most likely illegal.

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You obviously have no grasp on what the ACLU does.

Nor do you seem to understand First Amendment Law.

No one can tell you you can't wear a t-shirt with bomb making instructions. No one can stop you from wearing a "Death to ..." t-shirt. And I hate to break it to you, but racist speech, abhorrent though it is, is also protected speech.

Saying you can't yell Fire in a crowded theater is not equivalent to those things. Charging up to someone and yelling "I am going to kill you" is. You can't do either of those things.

The First Amendment protects all of our rights to say what's on our minds, however stupid those minds might be. It doesn't exist to make sure people's feelings don't get hurt.

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Neither of those things is a punishable offense.

The ACLU will defend the kid's right to wear the shirt. Period.

What I think is disgusting is that the school would have a red, white and blue day so students can show "their patriotism." That would have been a pink and lavender day for me if they tried to tell me I had to show "my patriotism," but then, I was an edgy fifth grader.

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No but political opinion definitely is.

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Re: Hate speech.

A brief notation from WIKI (below). SKOKIE (1981, starring Danny Kaye), is an excellent film on this highly controversial subject. Being Jewish myself, I find the discussion a neverending "battle". However, I agree with Namo re legal issues. A touchy subject for sure, but that's how we live in the United States of America. Stupidity, yes, racism, yes, homophobia, yes...however sometimes you have to either slough it off, or fight to change it...

NSPA Controversy

In 1977 and 1978, Illinois Nazis of the National Socialist Party of America (derived from the American Nazi Party) attempted to demonstrate their political existence with a march in Skokie — at the City's north western border — far from their south side headquarters. Originally, the NSPA had planned a political rally in Marquette Park, in the south side of Chicago, to which the City reacted against, first, by requiring the NSPA post an onerous public-safety-insurance bond, then, by banning all political demonstrations in Marquette Park.

Seeking another free-speech political venue, the NSPA chose to march on Skokie. Given the many Holocaust survivors living in Skokie, the Village's Government thought the Nazi march would be politically provocative and socially disruptive, and refused the NSPA its permission. In the event, the American Civil Liberties Union interceded in behalf of the NSPA, in the case of the National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie, wherein an Illinois appeals court raised the injunction issued by a Cook County Circuit Court judge, ruling that the presence of the swastika, the Nazi emblem, would constitute deliberate provocation of the people of Skokie, however, the Court also ruled that Skokie's attorneys had failed to prove that either the Nazi uniform or their printed materials, alleged the Nazis intended to distribute, would incite violence. [5]

Moreover, because Chicago subsequently lifted its Marquette Park political demonstration ban, the NSPA ultimately held its rally in Chicago. In 1981, the attempted Illinois Nazi march on Skokie was dramatised in the television movie, Skokie.

Updated On: 9/24/08 at 01:12 AM

The school district said he was suspended for willful disobedience and defiance, not the shirt itself. He was asked to change or turn it inside out and refused. When I was in middle school, boys had to turn their Billabong t-shirts inside out because the shaky implication of marijuana use could be "distracting in a learning environment." The ACLU wasn't called in; they just turned their shirts inside out for the day and then stopped wearing them to school. They use same excuse of "distraction" when enforcing dress code and forbidding girls from wearing sleeveless shirts or skirts too far above the knee. The schools are within their rights to enforce the dress code as they see fit.

Why defend this one boy for his disobedience when the same conflict goes on in thousands of principal's offices every day? Were this not politically "edgy" (and his father wasn't a psycho-conservative relishing in the spotlight), no one would be up in arms about the civil rights of fifth graders in public schools and the only discussion this would warrant would be related to school uniforms.

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Maybe I'm too much of an aesthete, but my biggest problem with the shirt is how awful the design looks.

The father wants to make it a Loony Liberals issue, but I'm sure the school would have taken the same measures with a comparably offensive McCain shirt.

I mean, especially if it was as ugly as this one is.

Note that according to the press release put out by the school, the boy's "sister wore a shirt with an anti-Obama message, which did not disrupt learning and no discipline was imposed in that case."


The school's press release on the matter

The school was well within their right to request the student change clothing. - Colleen

If it's a distraction in the class room, then it's a problem. The "message" is irrelevant. - Patronus

Exactly, agreed on both counts. As the school press release states, that's exactly why the student was disciplined. This boy's shirt was designed to agitate and disrupt, period.