The U.S. Supreme Court and Marilyn Manson: student garb and student rights

[Milossarian]

As noted here, SCOTUS sided Monday with an Ohio high school, saying its refusal to allow a student to wear Marilyn Manson T-shirts to school was not a violation of his Constitutional rights of free speech and due process.

A school administrator had told student Nicholas Boroff that his MM T-shirt was offensive. It depicted a three-faced Jesus on the front and the word “believe” with the letters “lie” highlighted on the back.

The administrator ordered Boroff to turn the shirt inside out or go home and change. Boroff returned for four subsequent days wearing different MM T-shirts, and was not allowed to participate in school each time.

Boroff sued the school district, claiming his constitutional rights had been violated. But like SCOTUS on Monday, a federal judge and a U.S. Court of Appeals judge each sided with the school.

From the story:

School officials could ban the shirts because they were determined to be “vulgar, offensive and contrary to the educational mission of the school,” the appeals court said, noting that school officials submitted evidence of the group’s “pro-drug persona.”

Public schools can prohibit students from wearing shirts that are offensive, even if they are not obscene and have not caused a substantial disruption of the school program, the appeals court said.

In the appeal acted on Monday, Boroff’s lawyers said that while there was evidence that Manson had promoted drug use and Satanism, that did not mean school officials could ban students from wearing his name and picture.

Lawyers for the school district said the group’s song lyrics had racial epithets, obscene language and “exhortations to suicide and violence.”

I personally think that Marilyn Manson is a dork, a high school marching band geek gone wrong with little talent. But I’m not sure how I feel about this.

There was a well-publicized incident at a high school in my home state of Michigan a few years back, where a student was suspended for wearing a T-shirt with the word ‘Korn’ on it (the name of a hard rock band). No vulgar depictions like with the MM T-shirt, just the name of the band.

That I’m completely opposed to, but this ruling would seem to support it.

I imagine a few of you out there who object to the pervasive imposition of Christian ideology at many public schools will howl at the seeming hypocrisy in the Supreme Court’s latest ruling. Although that isn’t my bag, I can see your point.

And what’s up with the “pro-drug persona?” What the hell does that even mean? Would a kid get busted for wearing a T-shirt with Manuel Noriega on it?

I wonder at what level there is, indeed, a violation of students’ constitutional rights. When the T-shirt just has a word, a band name, on it?

Many schools disallow girls from wearing shirts that expose their midriff, saying it distracts from the educational environment. (If you’re a male with a pulse and have seen this phenomenon, you would probably tend to agree. I don’t know how some of you fathers of teenage daughters are able to let them out of the house looking like that. Damn Britney Spears.)

Is this a rights violation, though? In that situation, there’s nothing arguably offensive, and although a little distracting for high school boys jacked up on hormones, nothing obscene.

Is this kind of notion like an employer with a dress code? Can it be, when taxpayer money is involved?

(The opinion doesn’t appear to be posted yet on SCOTUS’s web site.)

[DeadAngel]

I think it is horrible that schools can make you change your shirt because it says Marilyn Manson.

I’m still in high school, and I know they act the same way there. If you have a shirt that says “ICP” then it goes inside out. I even witnessed somebody that had to change his gym shirt because it was a MM shirt!

Another problem is that if you wear a shirt that says ‘God’ it is alright. If a shirt you wear says ‘Satan’, then you must turn it inside out. I wore a Cradle of Filth (black metal band) shirt that had a girl wearing nice leather clothes, and said, “Vigor Mortis” on the back. I had to change it. (I do understand why I’d have to change a shirt that has a half naked girl on it, but not because it is anti-christian.)

A thing with the religeous shirts… Aren’t religions suppossed to be out of schools? It really offends me that there is a group that gets together after hours at my school for god stuff…

[wring]

Schools are a different concept for so many reasons - public funding, but the students certainly aren’t ‘employees’ nor are they ‘inmates’, they are minors (for the most part), their attendance (for the most part) is not voluntary in the strict sense.

I was conflicted as well Milo (damn this parallel universe I’ve been stuck in!). I remember disagreeing strongly with the “Korn” shirt escapade. and My son had a MM shirt or two in jr. high, I did let him wear them to school (he got flack for a couple of them from only a handful of teachers, so he would turn it inside out during those classes).

What I refused to purchase for him included : shirts that demeaned sets of people (this included sex, religion, race), and shirts with profanity on them. But my rationale for that was out of a ‘politness’ factor. I believe in free speech, but I also believe on other people’s rights to tune them out. I can choose to not watch, read, listen to the KKK when they come into town, it’s a lot more difficult to not read a t-shirt that passes by me.

So, I’ve not really landed strongly on either side, I suspect.

[Whack-a-Mole]

Like Milo and Wring and find myself flip-flopping on this one. I’m a strong advocate of free speech but I can also see the need for schools to try and maintain some sort of standards and order. Unfortunately standards are subjective and therein lies the slippery slope.

Instead of fighting the students however the teachers should use such instances to engage their students. A philosophy or religion or sociology teacher could look at the Marilyn Manson t-shirt and use it to start a discussion. What does it mean tot he student wearing it? What does it mean to other students who view it? Why is it stressing the “LIE” portion of believe? Etc.

If someone suggests picking on the student wearing the t-shirt I’d say tough. The student is trying to say something and the shirt is speaking to anyone in his/her vicinity. The other students should have a right to respond. Done appropriately it could be a good thing and it would probably stop students from wearing those shirts so they avoid getting sucked into the center of such discussions.

Just a thought but in my experience the surest way to encourage a child to do something is to forbid them to do it. It’s time to come up with clever solutions (whatever they may be). The heavy handed obvious solutions rarely seem to achieve the desired outcome.

[SuaSponte]

SCOTUS jurisprudence on the rights of school kids is hopelessly screwed up. By this point, it’s “I can’t define ‘educational mission’, but I know it when I see it.” The biggest problem is that the Supremes have established arbitrariness as the law of the land here - sure as little green apples, if that kid was wearing a John “We’re bigger than Jesus Christ” Lennon t-shirt, he would have been allowed into school. Rules are good, even strict rules are fine, if they are consistent.

In the Supremes defense, I can see getting frustrated with the little rugrats. The kid with the MM t-shirt wasn’t making a statement; he was acting out. I think a fine compromise would be that high school students can wear whatever they want, but they all must take Ritalin.

Sua

[Milossarian]

**SCOTUS jurisprudence on the rights of school kids is hopelessly screwed up.

**
I was thinking the conversation would go here. I agree with you, Sua.

Not just with SCOTUS, but generally, there’s sort of a wink-wink, nudge-nudge when it comes to kids and their constitutional rights, it seems. Of course they have the same rights as everybody else, but …

And I’m not necessarily opposed to this, unless the people exercising authority over those kids’ rights get too draconian about it. Kids getting full exercise of their constitutional rights in a large public school setting would be chaotic to say the least.

Childhood is a time for learning, and the social aspects of that involve learning respect for others and learning that one’s actions have consequences. Some level of authority and discipline that perhaps goes beyond that which an adult would endure seems a component of that process.

[bdgr]

*Originally posted by SuaSponte *
**I think a fine compromise would be that high school students can wear whatever they want, but they all must take Ritalin.

Sua **

Yeah…good idea…lets give them all speed, it’ll make the news more interesting. The ones with ADHD will be nice and calm, but the others will be bouncing off the walls.

[wring]

bdgr: The “smiley face” at the end of the line you quoted signaled that Sua was joking. As I was joking when I suggested putting Valium in the drinking fountains at my son’s junior high school. Joke. Meant not to take seriously.

[minty_green]

Just for clarification, the Supreme Court did not “side with the school” on this case. It simply declined to review the case, as it does with thousands of others every year. Denial of review (technically, denying a writ of certiorari) establishes no Supreme Court precedent. So while this particular case is now settled, it was settled by the Seventh (?) Circuit Court of Appeals, and is only binding constitutional precedent within that circuit.

That said, I think the decision sucks. So what if MM has a “pro-drug persona”? Surely the kid couldn’t be sent home for personally advocating drug use, so I fail to see how a message of support for a pro-drug singer is somehow worse.

[bdgr]

*Originally posted by wring *
**bdgr: The “smiley face” at the end of the line you quoted signaled that Sua was joking. As I was joking when I suggested putting Valium in the drinking fountains at my son’s junior high school. Joke. Meant not to take seriously. **

Valium I could see…I know Sua was joking, I just had to be a smart ass and point out that giving the kids Ritalin would not have the desired effect…I suggest Vitamin T cocktails instead(Thorazine in orange juice).

[waxteeth]

*Originally posted by Milossarian *
**

Is this kind of notion like an employer with a dress code? Can it be, when taxpayer money is involved?

**

That’s what it seems like to me a dress code issue.

Tax money just means a board of directors needs to make the decisions on what the dress code will be.

[bdgr]

*Originally posted by waxteeth *
**

*Originally posted by Milossarian *
**

Is this kind of notion like an employer with a dress code? Can it be, when taxpayer money is involved?

**

That’s what it seems like to me a dress code issue.

Tax money just means a board of directors needs to make the decisions on what the dress code will be.

**

No, the parents need to make decisions on what the dress code will be (for their child only). Unless the way my child is dressed is obscene, or causes an imediate disruption to the class the school has no business telling me or my child what is apropriate to wear.

[waxteeth]

*Originally posted by bdgr *
**
No, the parents need to make decisions on what the dress code will be (for their child only). Unless the way my child is dressed is obscene, or causes an imediate disruption to the class the school has no business telling me or my child what is apropriate to wear. **

For multiple court decisions regarding public schools rights to establish and enforce dress codes check this link.
Here is a snip:
The boundaries on the authority of school officials to adopt stricter dress codes is now relatively clear. Student attire that conveys a message on a matter of public concern is considered symbolic speech deserving the full protection of the Tinker material and substantial disruption standard. Dress that is vulgar, indecent, obscene or insulting need not be tolerated. In addition, dress that carries a message that promotes or encourages behavior that is contrary to valid pedagogical purposes, such as smoking, drinking, drug use or physical or sexual violence, may be prohibited under Bethel. Finally, mere expressions of individuality or affiliation may be restricted if there is some reasonable basis for doing so.

[ITR_champion]

What exactly is meant by pro-drug persona? If Marilyn Manson used illegal drugs does that mean that he displays a pro-drug persona? If so then doesn’t John Lennon also have a pro-drug persona? After all, didn’t he put an acronym for an illegal drug in the name of one of his songs? So should kids be banned from wearing Beatles T-shirts?

It seems obvious to me that the school policy is not concerned with drugs, but rather with content that they just don’t like.

[bdgr]

*Originally posted by waxteeth *
For multiple court decisions regarding public schools rights to establish and enforce dress codes check this link.
**

There have been a few, but for the most part, Tinker v. Des Moines has stood up. And the last time I checked the ACLU web site they are still fighting this crap. The idea that banning gang clothes will help end gang violence is just plain silly. There was a case near here after columbine were a girl wanted to wear a black arm band to show sympathy or some other such thing. The school kicked her out and told her that they would only allow her back in if she apologized for it, and agreed not to talk to the media without thier permision. The principle even tore up a copy of the court ruling that said she was wrong. The aclu got in on it and the School District got thier but kicked in court. If an educator has no respect for the constitution and the laws of the land, they have no business teaching. And overly restrictive dress codes are wrong. Period.

Here is a snip:
The boundaries on the authority of school officials to adopt stricter dress codes is now relatively clear. Student attire that conveys a message on a matter of public concern is considered symbolic speech deserving the full protection of the Tinker material and substantial disruption standard. Dress that is vulgar, indecent, obscene or insulting need not be tolerated. In addition, dress that carries a message that promotes or encourages behavior that is contrary to valid pedagogical purposes, such as smoking, drinking, drug use or physical or sexual violence, may be prohibited under Bethel. Finally, mere expressions of individuality or affiliation may be restricted if there is some reasonable basis for doing so

as I said, unless the way my child dresses is obscene, or causes an imediate disruption…

[matt_mcl]

What I would like to know is this: if I had shown up to an affected high school wearing my “2QT2BSTR8” or rainbow maple-leaf flag t-shirts, would that be disruptive? sexual? religiously intolerant? What if it were in a state where sodomy is illegal? What if it were my pentacle instead? What if it were my trench coat? What if it were my trench coat with the white “end violence against women” ribbon on it?

How far do you go? And why do I see this affecting the kids who are already the most marginalized?

[Odesio]

*Originally posted by matt_mcl *
**What I would like to know is this: if I had shown up to an affected high school wearing my “2QT2BSTR8” or rainbow maple-leaf flag t-shirts, would that be disruptive? sexual? religiously intolerant?

**

Probably just disruptive.

**
How far do you go? And why do I see this affecting the kids who are already the most marginalized? **

I don’t know. I didn’t graduate high school so long ago and I don’t recall any of the “marginalized” students wearing stuff that got them kicked out. It was mostly the “mainstream” students who ran into that kind of problem. But even they were in fairly small numbers.

Marc