Waverly, I’m just wondering if you could expand a little more on “appropriate” as you used it here, and where you see that decision resting? It’s possible I may agree with you, but my first impulse was to start an argument.
Contrary to popular opinion, American citizens of school age do have First Amendment rights, and do not check them at the school door. They are limited by several factors, including parental control over what the child may and may not do, the school’s responsibilities both in loco parentis and to provide a learning environment for its students, and several other factors – just as any public institution may set guidelines for proper behavior upon the property it is entrusted with. A couple deciding to have an animated conversation during the showing of a movie or a play, for example, may be ejected – and their rights are not violated, regardless of whether the theater was publicly owned or not, because they are engaging in behavior inappropriate for the forum in which they did it.
But such regulations cannot be content-based. A rule saying “T-shirts with slogans on them cannot be warn” can be adopted, but must be enforced equally – you cannot allow “Jesus is MY savior” T-shirts while banning “Satan roolz!” T-shirts, for example. (And I’m confident that some kids would wear the latter just for the devilment of it! :))
So I’m a bit mystified as to how you meant “appropriate” – and I’ll await your elaboration.
Homebrew, Maybe I’m wired more simply than most folk, but if I made an announcement that I was heterosexual, I can assure you that my purpose would not be to let people know that I have non-physical romantic feelings for women. The purpose would be to let people know that I had a sexual attraction to women.
There’s more to any relationship than just sex, but what defines orientation is the physical attraction. I’ll agree that voicing an orientation is not sharing information about our sexuality when I see a straight guy marry another straight guy just because they enjoy each other’s company.
Of course, if the teenager in question had worn a “Barbie loves Jesus” t-shirt, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Despite the Right’s false claim of Christian persecution in the public school system, overtly religious mottoes are much more acceptable than overtly gay ones.
In the schools I went to NO T-shirts were allowed promoting any religion, any alcholic beverages, any message of hatred, any gay slogans, racial slogans etc.
I was sent home for the day for wearing a “christian” shirt. No blazing religious messages. Just a shirt from a church camp where I had been a teacher the previous summer.
They took a strict stand on any shirts to avoid any problems in their opinion.
Polycarp, An argument? Parish the thought. When I went to school, decaled T-shirts were not allowed, just as you describe. Their sometimes colorful statements were not appropriate, and eliminating them all saved a great number of judgment calls. Personally, I think it was good rule.
Assuming this school doesn’t enforce any standing rule on decaled T-shirts, they are forced to make a subjective judgment. I’m not yet convinced that this judgment is discriminatory, though I would certainly be against any type of discrimination.
For the reasons I already gave, I do believe that an open proclamation of sexual preference is an expression of sexuality. I think teenagers begining to see themselves as sexual creatures is quite natural, but I would not fault a school for discouraging any open expression. I do agree that suspension is too harsh a punishment.
I disagree with this. “Barbie takes it from behind” is about her sexual activities. “Barbie likes it from behind”, however, is about her – proclivities. It’s kind of a stupid distinction, but so is saying that “lesbian” refers to her orientation and not her sexual practice. The word implies both.
And just to throw my two cents in… that t-shirt is designed to provoke a reaction in others – either one of support (like it has in this thread) or shock. In either case, it’s a social/political statment that is (or could be) distracting in school. Especially jr. high. So the school is right by me to prohibit it – as long as they are consistant. “Jesus can free you from your homosexuality” would also be prohibited from school, ideally, for the same reason.
Otto, Tinker also said though that the standard is definitely different in schools than in other areas of life. We’d need more facts to determine whether this shirt caused a disruption in the school that harmed the school’s academic environment (I’m paraphrasing here, probably badly, from the Tinker decision).
If the T-shirt caused a disruption, then it’s not against the First Amendment for the school to ban her from wearing it or make her go home and change.
It definitely does look bad for the school, though, if it told the girl not to wear rainbow beads on a previous occasion; it seems to me that it’s much more difficult for colored beads to cause any sort of disruption.
As long as we’re parsing it this closely, "Barbie likes it from behind is about her activities. How does she know she likes it from behind if she doesn’t do it?
As for the original distinction you’re drawing, I sometimes where shirts which identify me as homosexual. Please tell me, based on that statement, what sex acts I engage in and which ones I enjoy, or if I engage in sex acts at all. “Lesbian” used as a noun applied to a person (or doll) is a statement of identity, not of action.
Please, enlighten us… what kind of “disruption” will this shirt cause? Are students going to leap out of their chairs in the middle of class, unable to concentrate on schoolwork in the presence of such a “disruptive” shirt?
Banning shirts because they cause “disruptions” is a sham. Even if we accept that shirts like this tend to make observers cause disruptions–which I’ve never seen happen–then the appropriate solution is to punish the observers who are being disruptive, not the person wearing the shirt.
The girl also claims that “'No other students got in trouble for wearing and doing the same things [she] did.”’
Of course, these are just claims, but if true, then I would say the school is guilty of discrimination. Most schools do have dress and jewellery policies, but they are usually explicit and apply to everyone, and rightly so.
Waverly, while I do see your point, “homosexual” and related terms are, despite the syllable, not considered by the people who, after all, wear them, to be about sexuality quite so much as about identity – sex is only a minor component, albeit an important one, of what goes into a marriage or romance, and identifying as “gay” or “Lesbian” is not saying, “I want to boink another boy/girl” quite so much as it is, “I am someone who is interested in/involved in a romantic relationship, which may or may not include sex at the moment, with another boy/girl.” Just my perspective, from what I’ve seen and read; YMMV.
Do we know anything about the dress code at this school? Not allowing shirts with any pictures or words on them is getting to be a pretty common part of school dress codes. The “disruption” clause is even more common, to prevent things like “Show me where it says I can’t wear crotchless leather pants with no underwear. Show me!” If the school has a written policy regarding slogan t-shirts, or if other students were spending more time in class whispering about her than listening to the teacher (and c’mon, these are 14-year-olds, which do you think they were focused on?) then the suspension is valid.
If this is just an arbitrary thing and no one was paying any attention to her but the administration, then it’s bullshit. However, I’m gonna have to have more than, “Well, everybody else gets by with it,” to come to that conclusion. You know, like some documentation of the hair bead incident, and some pictures of what, exactly, we’re talking about. And some specific examples of the other students who wore rainbow beads and Lesbian Barbie shirts without incident.
I don’t need much more myself. The suspension is bullshit. Freedom of speech and expression is quelled at such an early age (by nonsensical, arbitary rules, heavy handed puritannical values and the fear of offense), that when a kid like this one swims up stream and rebels against the plastic existence of modern day america, she’s punished, and either forced to toe the line, or risk not being allowed to be educated. If your child is shown to have creative tendencies (read: problems) you feed them ritalin. We’ve ceased completely the practice of creating well adjusted, intelligent free thinking children, and are breeding a race of distant, inactive, overweight automotons, that live for the tacit approval of the ‘establishment’.
It’s no wonder so many kids are rebelling, and “acting out” they’re under so much stress, and so much pressure to be, to do, to buy, that they never get to identify themselves, and do it through things like this. Problem is, the brand conscious, and equally puritannical nature of American society prevents the true expression of self (read: hey, why are you wearing THAT shirt, you should be wearing old navy, all the kids are!).
It’s all just bullshit. The rules, the dress codes, the school uniforms, it’s all just nonsense. I mean, yeah, school uniforms worked in the past, in fact, I’ve even seen films from the 40’s on the subject, but the picture was all grainy, and the talking was in German.
It’s fucked.
You actually do the little quotey motions with your fingers as you post, don’t you?
So you think kids should be able to wear whatever they want to to school? If so, we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I think the school has the best interest of the students in mind by banning certain types of clothing. I wouldn’t let a kid wear a shirt that says “Hetero and proud of it!” either.
