Tenn. School Fight Over Jena 6 T-Shirt

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A student is suing her suburban Nashville school district for the right to wear a T-shirt with the words “Free the Jena Six,” a reference to the black students in a Louisiana town accused of beating a white classmate.

According to a lawsuit filed in federal court in Nashville last week, Danielle Super came in to school late on Sept. 20 after having attended a march.

As she was waiting for her mother to sign her in, Smyrna High School assistant principal Jolene Watson told her she could not come into the school wearing the Jena Six T-shirt because it could “cause a problem.”

After protesting the order, Super changed shirts and returned to school, the complaint states.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/10/4457/

http://www.splc.org/newsflash.asp?id=1608&year=

and New Jersey federal court recently ruled middleschool kids could wear buttons with Hitler Youth pictures on them in order to protest compelled uniforms.

<http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1174307781411>

"Five years later, Frederick's suit against the principal has evolved into a potential landmark reassessment of Tinker v. Des Moines, the 1969 high court decision that declared the right of students to freedom of expression in schools, so long as it is not disruptive and does not invade the rights of others.

On Monday, former solicitor general Kenneth Starr and deputy solicitor general Edwin Kneedler, arguing on behalf of Morse, seemed to win over Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. with the argument that school officials should be given deference when restricting student speech to advance a school's educational mission -- especially, though not exclusively, when that mission is fighting illegal drugs.

"Can't the school decide that it's part of its mission to try to prevent its students from engaging in drug use?" Roberts asked incredulously.

But Justice Samuel Alito Jr. described that as a "very, very disturbing argument," because granting such deference would give school officials a broad charter to punish student speech by simply declaring it contrary to their ever-expanding educational mission.

"They can suppress all sorts of political speech and speech expressing fundamental values of the students, under the banner of getting rid of speech that's inconsistent with educational missions," Alito said."

> "They can suppress all sorts of political speech and
> speech expressing fundamental values of the students,
> under the banner of getting rid of speech that's
> inconsistent with educational missions," Alito said."

No matter what Alito said, it's not clear that the "Bong
Hits for Jesus" case bears on the wearing of political tee
shirts. While he may be a Constitution-shredder, political
speech has always been highly protected and it's not at
all clear that he can get four other Justices to join
him in a hypothetical case.

Tesha

and proceeded to class. :-)

I can't see why they care what they have on their shirts.