# Teacher Orders Kid to Lose Romney Shirt **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 4, 2012, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-orders-kid-to-lose-romney-shirt/636714 "2012-10-04T17:04:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-orders-kid-to-lose-romney-shirt/636714/41 "2012-10-04T23:52:23Z")
> [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](#): > > As far as I know, schools in fact can NOT have a policy prohibiting shirts with political messages, under _Tinker v. Des Moines_. As long as it’s not obscene and it’s **not likely to disrupt the classroom** , the kids have an actual right to wear such shirts. So it makes the teacher’s actions doubly bad - illegally suppressing free speech and doing it on the fly with personal viewpoint discrimination! Bolding and underline mine. The schools can decide that political messages are likely to be disruptive. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-orders-kid-to-lose-romney-shirt/636714/42 "2012-10-04T23:52:56Z")
> [@Nars\_Glinley](#): > > Apparently some geometry teachers struggle with humor. It is a difficult concept. Perhaps she thought politics was incongruous with her classroom. Or that it was tangential to the subject being taught. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-orders-kid-to-lose-romney-shirt/636714/43 "2012-10-04T23:53:58Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Perhaps she thought politics was incongruous with her classroom. Or that it was tangential to the subject being taught. Now you’re just being obtuse. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-orders-kid-to-lose-romney-shirt/636714/44 "2012-10-04T23:55:07Z")
> [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](#): > > As far as I know, schools in fact can NOT have a policy prohibiting shirts with political messages, under _Tinker v. Des Moines_. As long as it’s not obscene and it’s not likely to disrupt the classroom, the kids have an actual right to wear such shirts. So it makes the teacher’s actions doubly bad - illegally suppressing free speech and doing it on the fly with personal viewpoint discrimination! Indeed. I mentioned elsewhere that I’m doing a unit on government and voting with my third-graders (depressing fact of the day: I asked a girl as she left the classroom to name her city, and she could do so, but the nine-year-old in line behind her, a very bright child, could not name either the state or the country we live in–time to take the unit down a few notches!). Because we’re talking about government, I can’t ignore what’s going on in the news. And I live in a very liberal town, so there’s almost certainly a vast imbalance among the candidates that parents support. But I’m paranoidly careful not to inject my own partisan beliefs into the system. The closest I’ve come is that when a certain kid cheered the mention of Obama and booed the mention of Romney, I stopped him and explained that, on the day after the election, nearly half the country would see their preferred candidate lose, and that the winners and the losers would all still be Americans, and we needed to practice respecting the folks we disagreed with. I’ve never done consulting before, but I suppose I could offer a class for this teacher. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2012, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-orders-kid-to-lose-romney-shirt/636714/45 "2012-10-05T00:02:04Z")
> [@Nars\_Glinley](#): > > Now you’re just being obtuse. Don’t be such a square! ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2012, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-orders-kid-to-lose-romney-shirt/636714/46 "2012-10-05T00:08:44Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Don’t be such a square! I have a parallel line of thinking to this, myself. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2012, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-orders-kid-to-lose-romney-shirt/636714/47 "2012-10-05T00:11:31Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Perhaps she thought politics was incongruous with her classroom. It was difficult enough studying geometry when I was in high school. If there had been any girls taking off their shirts in the classroom, it would have been a hopeless cause. ---
**Author:** ![Suil\_Dubh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85f322/32.png) [@Suil\_Dubh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suil_Dubh)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2012, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-orders-kid-to-lose-romney-shirt/636714/48 "2012-10-05T00:30:49Z")
> [@Typo\_Negative](#): > > A joke??? Good God! > > It was a hysterical overreaction from the teacher. If the school has no policy about political messages on t-shirts, then this teacher should hold her water in front of the student and complain to the Admins to change their policy. It could have been a joke and a hysterical overreaction from the student. Maybe the teacher really was joking, and said the comment in light-hearted tone, but the student took it the wrong way. Maybe the student wanted to take a comment about her shirt in the wrong way, and had been waiting for a chance all day. Maybe her parents put her up to this. Then again, maybe the teacher was being hysteric, and really did embarrass the student for no good reason, and the “it was all a joke” excuse is an attempt a career saving lie. We don’t know. The article in the OP only presents the student’s side of the story. It’s easy to see how this kind of incident can get spun into “Fanatical teacher unfairly humiliates innocent student for expressing her constitutional rights and freedoms”. It would be good if we could hear from the teacher, and better yet the classmates as well. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2012, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-orders-kid-to-lose-romney-shirt/636714/49 "2012-10-05T01:02:36Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Don’t be such a square! I’m right and I know it. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2012, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-orders-kid-to-lose-romney-shirt/636714/50 "2012-10-05T01:59:24Z")
> [@Nars\_Glinley](#): > > I’m right and I know it. I was going to say something similar. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2012, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-orders-kid-to-lose-romney-shirt/636714/51 "2012-10-05T02:03:56Z")
> [@Larry\_Borgia](#): > > I was going to say something similar. Now you’ll have to take the opposite position. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2012, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-orders-kid-to-lose-romney-shirt/636714/52 "2012-10-05T02:25:06Z")
> [@Nars\_Glinley](#): > > Now you’ll have to take the opposite position. I’ll reflect on that. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2012, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-orders-kid-to-lose-romney-shirt/636714/53 "2012-10-05T02:39:02Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I don’t regard this in any way as representative of liberals. > > It seemed to me like typical Pit-worthy RO at a single foolish teacher. Why would it belong in the stupid liberals thread? Besides, I hate those one size fits all threads that go on for a hundred pages. If I got something to bitch about, I’m starting my own thread. (Unless one has already been started on that specific subject.) ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2012, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-orders-kid-to-lose-romney-shirt/636714/54 "2012-10-05T02:58:58Z")
Teacher was wrong. Just like my 3rd grade teacher was wrong when she told us how McGovern was evil and that Nixon was far better suited to be POTUS. I would have been on the news everyday if I had a press conference every time a teacher said something that upset me. ---
**Author:** ![Freakenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b782af/32.png) [@Freakenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freakenstein)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2012, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-orders-kid-to-lose-romney-shirt/636714/55 "2012-10-05T10:16:31Z")
> [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](#): > > As long as it’s not obscene and it’s not likely to disrupt the classroom, the kids have an actual right to wear such shirts. So it makes the teacher’s actions doubly bad - illegally suppressing free speech and doing it on the fly with personal viewpoint discrimination! But it DID disrupt! QED. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2012, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-orders-kid-to-lose-romney-shirt/636714/56 "2012-10-05T14:44:11Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Because we’re talking about government, I can’t ignore what’s going on in the news. And I live in a very liberal town, so there’s almost certainly a vast imbalance among the candidates that parents support. But I’m paranoidly careful not to inject my own partisan beliefs into the system. The closest I’ve come is that when a certain kid cheered the mention of Obama and booed the mention of Romney, I stopped him and explained that, on the day after the election, nearly half the country would see their preferred candidate lose, and that the winners and the losers would all still be Americans, and we needed to practice respecting the folks we disagreed with. Good for you. Good thing the kid wasn’t around in 2000, or you would have had to explain that sometimes, _more_ than half the country sees their candidate lose. And then you would have to explain the Electoral College and hanging chads. And if the kids don’t know what state they live, that would melt their brains. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2012, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-orders-kid-to-lose-romney-shirt/636714/57 "2012-10-05T14:59:43Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > Teacher was wrong. > Just like my 3rd grade teacher was wrong when she told us how McGovern was evil and that Nixon was far better suited to be POTUS. > I would have been on the news everyday if I had a press conference every time a teacher said something that upset me. Agreed. I had a teacher start talking about abortion. It’s been twenty years and I’ll never forget what happened when I raised my hand and tried to state my viewpoint: “If the child is unwanted, wouldn’t it be better if it wasn’t born to a life of unhappiness? Maybe the mom could wait until she was ready to have a child?” Teacher was PISSED. “Absolutely not! All life is better than no life, and who are you to say it would be a miserable life anyway?” he shouted. That’s…a great way to make your students want to speak up in class. :rolleyes: Teachers are people, too, and they do stupid things, too. Now it’s news every time they do. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2012, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-orders-kid-to-lose-romney-shirt/636714/58 "2012-10-05T15:33:43Z")
Dopers going to great lengths to get bent out of shape? Figures. Now we just need offences against theology… ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2012, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-orders-kid-to-lose-romney-shirt/636714/59 "2012-10-05T16:38:47Z")
What if. Teacher demands 16 year old “take off that shirt”, and she does. This was “dress down day” and let’s suppose student is bra-less. Is teacher guilty of pedophilia/corrupting the morals/etc? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2012, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-orders-kid-to-lose-romney-shirt/636714/60 "2012-10-05T16:46:43Z")
> [@gamerunknown](#): > > Dopers going to great lengths to get bent out of shape? Figures. Now we just need offences against theology… What “great length”? This was retarded, and it was in the news. [QUOTE=Yllaria] Bolding and underline mine. The schools can decide that political messages are likely to be disruptive. [/QUOTE] There’s a bit more to it than that. The school has to decide that the regulation “materially and substantially interferes” with school discipline. The crux of the decision was that the school must demonstrate “something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint.” A school might permissibly ban _all_ candidate-related clothing, though. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-orders-kid-to-lose-romney-shirt/636714.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-orders-kid-to-lose-romney-shirt/636714.md?page=4)