Students sue after being told to remove ‘Let’s go, Brandon’ sweatshirts
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A Michigan sixth-grader was walking down the hallway last year when he was stopped by his school’s assistant principal. The student at Tri County Middle School in Howard City, Mich., was wearing a sweatshirt that read “Let’s go, Brandon,” a political slogan that became synonymous with a profane insult of President Biden. The assistant principal told the student the sweatshirt was “equivalent to” an expletive, according to a new lawsuit.
That day in February 2022, the assistant principal told the student to remove it, and the sixth-grader did so, afraid he’d be punished if he didn’t, the lawsuit says. But weeks later, when he wore the sweatshirt again, he was told by a teacher to remove it.
The student’s brother, an eighth-grader at the school, was also told to remove a “Let’s go, Brandon” sweatshirt when he wore one in May 2022. Now, their mother is suing on their behalf, alleging in a complaint filed Tuesday that the teacher, assistant principal and Tri County Area Schools were “violating the First Amendment by censoring the students’ peaceful, non-disruptive political expression.”
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In a statement, the students’ mother said she was proud of her sons for “standing up for their First Amendment rights.” She and her sons, both minors, are identified only by initials in the lawsuit.
“Instead of allowing my sons to express their beliefs to their classmates, school officials punished them,” she wrote in a statement provided by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which is representing the students. “Instead of seeing political sweatshirts as a potential conversation starter between students, officials saw it as an opportunity to discriminate against opinions they didn’t like.”
Allen Cumings, superintendent of Tri County Area Schools, said the district had no comment Tuesday afternoon, citing the pending litigation and “matters that involve students of the District due to federal privacy laws and Board Policy.”
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The lawsuit is the latest example of schools becoming a battleground for First Amendment rights and political speech — with legal disputes across the country over apparel bearing symbols including the Pride flag, Black Lives Matter insignia and the “Make America Great Again” slogan.
Conor Fitzpatrick, the lead attorney for the Michigan students, said schools are a “reflection of what is going on in wider society.”
“I would say certainly there’s been a worrisome trend on both the right and the left of trying to censor speech that they don’t like, rather than debate it or refute it with their own viewpoints,” he said.
When the sixth-grader wore the “Let’s go, Brandon” sweatshirt to school the second time “to express his opposition to President Biden,” the lawsuit says the teacher “threatened punishment.”
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“Take that sweatshirt off,” the teacher said, according to the lawsuit. “I’ve told you before and won’t tell you again.”
The teacher told the-sixth grader that the sweatshirt was “not permitted,” the lawsuit alleges.
A few months later, when the sixth-grader’s brother, an eighth-grader, wore his “Let’s go, Brandon” sweatshirt to school in May, the assistant principal pulled him out of class, according to the complaint.
He allegedly told the student to remove the sweatshirt, adding that the school did “not allow students to wear clothing with political speech.” The eighth-grader obliged.
Both students want to wear their sweatshirts “to express their opposition to President Biden,” the lawsuit says.
The Tri County Middle School dress code prohibits clothing that is “in conflict with state policy, is a danger to the students’ health and safety, is obscene, is disruptive to the teaching and/or learning environment by calling undue attention to oneself” or that contains “messages or illustrations that are lewd, indecent, vulgar, or profane, or that advertise any product or service not permitted by law to minors.”
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Fitzpatrick said the students and their mother are not disputing the school’s ability to prohibit clothing containing explicit profanity, but are arguing rather that the “Let’s go, Brandon” sweatshirts would not fall under that category.
“What schools can’t do, and what the First Amendment doesn’t allow, is for schools to prohibit speech just because it might cause somebody to think about a swear word,” he said. “And that’s what the school’s doing here.”
According to the lawsuit, the school district “permits students to wear apparel expressing other political and social messages, including but not limited to apparel expressing support for LGBTQ+ rights.”
It further alleges that the district continued its “pattern of discrimination against pro-[Donald] Trump and anti-Biden political expression” at a June 2022 field day at the middle school.
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During the field day, which took place after the brothers had been asked to remove their sweatshirts, students who wore Pride flags were allowed to do so, but another who wore a “Trump 2020” flag was asked to take it off after about two hours despite “little to no reaction” from their peers, according to the lawsuit.
In a press release Tuesday, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression said the case is seeking a court order that would block Tri County Area Schools from its “viewpoint-discriminatory ban on ‘Let’s go Brandon’ apparel.’”
The two brothers are suing, the complaint states, “to ensure that America’s students remain free to use their Constitutional rights at school, not just learn about them.”
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Source: The Washington Post
