7th grader sues school to wear pro-life t-shirt
UPDATE, 7/9, 9:20a: People have asked if this t-shirt is still available. I checked with American Life League, and there are 10 XLs left and “a boatload” of XXLs. They’re cheap ($5.50). Order here.
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From Fox News, July 6 (Can’t believe Fox called these images “graphic.”):
Anna Amador has gone to court on behalf of her daughter, who she says was ordered by her principal to change her shirt on “National Pro-Life T-Shirt Day.” The shirt the girl was wearing displays two graphic pictures of a fetus growing in the womb….
The incident occurred in April 2008 at McSwain Elementary School, a K-8 school in Merced, CA. Amador alleges in her legal complaint that school Principal Terrie Rohrer, Assistant Principal C.W. Smith and office clerk Martha Hernandez mistreated her daughter and denied the girl her First Amendment rights when they ordered her to leave the cafeteria and change her shirt.
“Before Plaintiff could eat [breakfast] she was ordered by a school staff member to throw her food out and report immediately to Defendant Smith’s office…,” the complaint reads.
“Upon arriving at the main office, Defendant Hernandez, intentionally and without Plaintiff’s consent, grabbed Plaintiff’s arm and forcibly escorted her toward Smith’s office, at all times maintaining a vice-like grip on Plaintiff’s arm. Hernandez only released Plaintiff’s arm after physically locating her in front of Smith and Defendant Rohrer…
“Smith and Rohrer ordered Plaintiff to remove her pro-life T-shirt and instructed Plaintiff to never wear her pro-life T-shirt at McSwain Elementary School ever again…
“Completely humiliated and held out for ridicule, Plaintiff complied with Defendants’ directives and removed her pro-life T-shirt, whereupon, Defendants seized and confiscated it. Defendants did not return Plaintiff’s property until the end of the school day.”
The school administrators dispute some of the allegations, said Anthony DeMaria, attorney for… McSwain….
He said he was unable to reach the administrators to determine which parts they say are incorrect, because school is out for the summer….
The school district sought to get the case thrown out due to “failure to state a cognizable claim,” but a U.S. Eastern District Court judge ruled last month that all but one of Amador’s claims could go forward.
The complaint quotes school district officials saying that they ordered Amador’s daughter to remove the shirt because it constituted “inappropriate subject matter” in violation of the school’s dress code, which bans clothing with “suggestion of tobacco, drug or alcohol use, sexual promiscuity, profanity, vulgarity, or other inappropriate subject matter.”
Amador claims in the legal complaint that other students at the school have been allowed to wear expressive shirts, and she blames the school for “inconsistently applying their Dress Code based upon subjective determinations as to which messages are acceptable and which messages are not.”
One of the girl’s lawyers, Mark Thiel, said that the images on her shirt of a fetus in the womb were same as those in her science textbooks. He said no student had complained about the shirt, and he said the girl’s parents were not called when the incident took place….
A spokeswoman for the local Planned Parenthood chapter declined to take sides in the case.
“Even offensive speech is protected as long as it doesn’t impinge upon the rights of others,” said Deborah Ortiz, vice president of public affairs for PP Mar Monte….
UCLA law professor and First Amendment expert Eugene Volokh said Supreme Court precedent appears to support the girl’s case.
“During the Vietnam War, the Supreme Court ruled that wearing black arm bands [at school, to protest the war] was OK,” Volokh said. “If students can wear armbands in protest, why can’t they wear a pro-life shirt?”
He said the case would be different if there was evidence that the shirt could have led to disruption or fighting….
But the fact that it’s a K-8 school with very young children could change things, said Brooklyn Law School professor William Araiza. He pointed to the 2007 Supreme Court decision in Morse v. Frederick, where the court allowed a high school to suspend students in Juneau, AK, who waved a banner that read “Bong hits 4 Jesus” from across the street during an Olympic torch relay, because it was seen as promoting illegal drug use.
“[The school] could almost use a “bong hits” kind of rationale about protecting students from inappropriate messages,” Araiza said. “For instance, would you allow a 4th grader to wear a gruesome picture of a bomb scene? You probably wouldn’t.”
First Amendment attorney William Becker, who represents Amador, disagreed that the shirt could be seen as containing inappropriate messages.
“The message of the T-shirt is that life is sacred,” he said. “One would be very hard pressed to find anything wrong with that particular idea, except that some people do object to the political message.”
[HT: Gregg Cunningham of Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, reader Janet]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
“One of the girl’s lawyers, Mark Thiel, said that the images on her shirt of a fetus in the womb were same as those in her science textbooks.”
I don’t think it was the pictures that bothered the moderators, it was the word “Abortion” on it. How I wish people would stop looking at abortion as just a political issue. It is a LIFE issue. It’s time people look at abortion for what it really is.
The truth can be very offensive to some people.
This is a Very Depressing Society,,When 2 Pictures of a Beautiful Baby are considered Graphic Pictures. { Like Pornography } Its Like the World thinks having a child is some sort of mutant disease. Lord Please have Mercy on Our Land. Where has The Common Sense Gone? We Must Stop This Assault on Our Children In And Out Of The Womb. Stand up and Do Not Be Intimidated by these P.C. Thugs. If This Childs Parents need help with legal funds , count me in!
To be honest, I don’t think T-shirts with any political message or specific pictures such as skulls, dragons etc should be allowed in elementary schools or schools up to gr 8 or so.
In higher grades, political issues can be dealt with in the context of groups and I’m fine with t-shirts worn during the time these groups undertake activities.
Kudos to the girl for being brave enough to wear it in the first place! I wore my t-shirt to the gym on national pro-life t-shirt day and the stares and comments can be intimidating…I can’t imagine being in school with all the social pressures and being brave like this girl!
And kudos to the mom who put her money on the line to defend her daughter and the pro-life message! The lessons she is teaching her daughter will last her entire lifetime! You get high-fives from me!
Why is it whenever there is a story the media is compelled to run to Planned Parenthood for some sort of opinion?
Has their brand worked so well that when someone says “abortion” the first thought that comes to mind is Planned Parenthood?
Why is the shirt offensive if there is nothing wrong with abortion to begin with. Their actions simply scream truth, and probably are also self-condemning.
Posted by: angel at July 7, 2009 8:56 AM
Normally I would agree but these kids (under the present administration) would be hearing about sex so they should know the repercussions as well.
Basically I am saying the brainwashing of the pro-choice side has already begun at this age so an opposing view point is needed.
The school is going down down down. Whoever thought this was ok must be high or incredibly dumb and not capable of teaching our children. We should all wear this shirt again soon, on the same day.
This brave, inspiring young lady could very well grow up to be the President of this country! God Bless her!
I am very proud of this girl and her mother!!
My son wears a tshirt to school that says Jesus Christ The Real Thing with a Coca Cola look to it.
No calls from the principal about that. I would welcome it, though. heh
Being a liberal, my inclination is to say that the school ought to let students wear political t-shirts to school, including t-shirts like the one this girls is wearing.
However, my guess is that the legal issue hinges on whether the school has content-neutral clothing policies that this girl was violating. Do they prohibit other political t-shirts, other t-shirts with writing? Are certain topics like sexuality, pregnancy and abortion regulated in some way so as not to expose young children to those topics? (The latter would not be a policy I agree with, but could arguably be considered a content-neutral policy.)
The school can’t favor one political message over another, but I think they can have general rules about clothing and political messages that apply equally to everyone.
I think the PP spokeswoman was right on not to weigh on this. There is no way of knowing at this point whether the school ran afoul of the girl’s first amendment rights. If they did, though, I have no problem supporting this girl’s right to air her views at school.
Yet, it’s okay to teach our children in public schools that it is okay to have consensual sex with a person of the same gender at the kindergarden level? It’s okay for a 14 year old to have an abortion without telling parents? But, not okay to give a child a tylenol without parents permission?
They have a very good argument on this one. The school should have notified the parents and they were really aggressive with that young girl. Why man-handle her and make her throw out her breakfast?
I think the PP spokeswoman was right on not to weigh on this. There is no way of knowing at this point whether the school ran afoul of the girl’s first amendment rights. If they did, though, I have no problem supporting this girl’s right to air her views at school.
Posted by: Prochoicer at July 7, 2009 11:39 AM
Me too.
I think the man-handling of school children in general is an issue that doesn’t get enough attention. And it is all too common. (Although we who oppose man-handling recently had a victory by which the Supreme Court ruled that strip-searching a 13 year old girl on suspicion of possessing unauthorized ibuprofen is NOT okay.) In addition, more than 20 states continue to allow paddling in the public schools.
“(Although we who oppose man-handling recently had a victory by which the Supreme Court ruled that strip-searching a 13 year old girl on suspicion of possessing unauthorized ibuprofen is NOT okay.)”
Well, duh. We need a Supreme Court Justice to tell us that?
Just noticed this is a California school. No wonder they’re broke. :(
On National Prolife Tshirt Day, I think it is entirely appropriate to wear a prolife tshirt. :)
Oh, and American Life League has a flyer from their legal department if one should get harassed in school.
I think parents who have had 4D ultrasound of their babies, get the images transferred to tshirts and let the kiddoes wear them to school. After all, it’s their “first photo.”
Janet,
The mulberry pie was ah.ma.zing. :)
Carla,
Your idea of transferring a baby’s ultrasound to a T-shirt is a great one. Glad to hear you liked the pie. You must be an amazing baker! :)
The 7th grader should’ve worn a Temple Of Doom T Shirt! On the back it says 49,670,770 babies aborted since Jan 22 1973 I’m sure the principal would’ve loved that.
this is why I support school uniforms.
I’ve got that tshirt from A.L.L. Mike Hassett. It shows the Supreme Court on it.
I’m willing to bet 9 times out of 10 that it is a teacher’s or administrator’s personal sensibilities being used as the guideline for what is school appropriate (when it’s not obviously profane or in violation of a specific rule). This was definitely my experience in school. Teachers and administrators often made their prejudices against certain students (because of those students beliefs or appearance) all too obvious. The rules were selectively enforced with inconsistent interpretations and punishments as a means to mildly bully students. The dress code was a favorite avenue for teacher’s to assert their authority over well-behaved students that they simply didn’t like, and usually it was because of that student’s opinions. I don’t know if that’s the case at this school, and I’m not meaning to speak ill of teachers (a lot of them are total saints), but I don’t think my experience was uncommon. I doubt the majority of students feel disrupted or offended by t-shirts with political or religious slogans. In fact, given the heigthened sense of political awareness among adolescents and teenagers, I trust that students with opposing views could debate in a civil manner. It’s generally the adults in a school setting that dramatize it.
Janet,
I am in a parade on Friday with the Pregnancy Helpline. Just thinking how awesome that would look with ultrasound images on our white tshirts!! :)
I did a post just for you today…
For those interested, they have the 2009 Pro Life Memorial day tshirt for sale already. Its a few months away (October) but they usually sell out quickly as the day approaches, so get yours soon. I’ll be ordering mine next week as well as a few other shirts.
I wonder if those who balked at this thought it was just precious when the young’ens were being led in a chorus of “Yes, We Can, Can, Can!” by their music teacher.
Well, I don’t respect anything involving the Godless public schools including the authority which said the student couldn’t wear the t-shirt. By suing the school, the parents are teaching their daughter not to respect the authority as well. However, it’s extremely unwise to teach children to not respect the authority over them.
In this instance and for no good reason, the parents placed their daughter under the authority of the Godless. If the parents really cared for their daughter, they’d pull her out of the failed pit of despair, the anti-Christ public school, which will ultimately ruin her. Until the parents end the joint-custody over their daughter between them and the govt, they shouldn’t complain or file suit against a system dedicated to eradicating any vestige of Christianity in its “students.” This can’t be a surprise for these parents.
Hi Curtis,
Are you forgetting that Christian teachers and Christian students are shining His light in the public schools? Nobody can stop someone from praying in school or bringing their Bible or holding prayer groups and Bible Studies. My daughter has had 3 wonderful Godly public school teachers in a row. She brings her Bible and reads it for show n tell. A lawsuit is a good reminder that we do not give up our faith when we venture out of our homes and into the public square.