I don’t argue with the rights of schools to determine what’s disruptive as far as student behavior, nor do I argue with their rights to punish whatever they deem disruptive by removal, etc., of the disruptive student. Frankly, I don’t necessarily believe that political statements on t-shirts are protected inside a school building.
Two Des Moines Roosevelt High School students say their right to free expression was violated when they were directed this week to change their anti-abortion T-shirts that administrators said might have disrupted school.
Sisters Brittany and Tamera Chandler said they were threatened with suspension when they wore the T-shirts, which included a picture of a fetus above the words “Abortion Kills Kids,” as part of Tuesday’s “National Pro-Life T-Shirt Day.”
Roosevelt Principal Anita Micich said the sisters were not threatened with suspension. She said the students were called into the office after a teacher expressed concern about other students’ reaction to the T-shirts.
“I was worried that students who were expressing themselves might become targets, or that it might become so disruptive we couldn’t conduct classes,” Micich said. “It was headed down that path.”
That being said, I have to wonder why we don’t hear more stories of this sort of thing happening in the other direction. I mean, you never hear about students asked to cover up their “Bush is a terrorist” shirts, or anything like that. You never hear students asked to change their “we’re here, we’re queer, get over it” shirts.
Yet you seem to hear more and more about students being asked to change their shirts when they protest abortion, or gay pride, or some other liberal pet-cause. Heck, most schools that have problems with shirts that say “God created Adam and Eve, Not Adam and Steve” are almost universally participating in some sort of “gay pride” day at some point in the year.
It makes you wonder why shirts that display a conservative message are almost universally considered a disruption while the shirts that protect a liberal cause are not, and in some cases, those liberal causes are even given a day of school.
Again, I’m all for schools determining what’s disruptive for themselves and punishing the junior protesters if they have an adverse effect on the educational process for other students. I just don’t see it happening both ways, and that really bothers me.
What do you think? Have you ever heard of a case where the reverse happened? Where a “Bush is a terrorist” shirt got a kid in trouble?
Source: DeMoines Register