The school is going to lose. As long as speech or expression does not disrupt the classroom a school can't suppress it - whether it's anti-Vietnam War armbands or pro-Trump sweaters.

reason.com
School officials forced students to remove 'Let's Go Brandon' sweatshirts. Now, they're suing.
"Criticism of the president is core political speech protected by the First Amendment," says the students' attorney.

Students sue Michigan school district for banning 'Let's Go Brandon' sweatshirts

Tresa Baldas
Detroit Free Press
Published 6:05 a.m. ET April 26, 2023 | Updated 6:09 p.m. ET April 26, 2023

Two Michigan students are suing their school district for not letting them wear sweatshirts to class bearing the political slogan "Let's Go Brandon" — a popular euphemism for a profane curse toward President Joe Biden.

The middle schoolers argue they have a right to protest the president of the United States. The school district maintains the sweatshirts are vulgar and it has a right to prohibit such material.

Sounds like BS, counter the students, their mom and their lawyers. ... “Criticism of the president is core political speech protected by the First Amendment,” attorney Conor Fitzpatrick said in a statement Tuesday. “Whether it’s a Biden sticker, ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ sweatshirt or gay pride T-shirt, schools can’t pick and choose which political beliefs students can express.”



A western Michigan school district barred students from wearing hoodies like this, which spurred a federal lawsuit alleging the students free speech rights were denied. U.S. District Court

Fitzpatrick, an attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, filed a lawsuit Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids against the Tri County Area Schools on behalf of two brothers and their mother who argue the students’ constitutional rights have been violated. The school district is in western Michigan, about 30 miles north of Grand Rapids.

Specifically, the lawsuit alleges that last year, two brothers wore “Let’s Go Brandon” sweatshirts to Tri County Middle School in Howard City, but an assistant principal and a teacher ordered the students to remove the shirts. According to the lawsuit, the assistant principal told one of the boys that “his sweatshirt was equivalent to the F-word.”

{snip}

Michigan Students Sue School District Over ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Ban

The case is seeking declaration that requiring students to remove “Let’s go Brandon” attire violated the students’ First Amendment rights.

By Lauren McCarthy
April 26, 2023

A mother of two students in Howard City, Mich., filed a lawsuit claiming the public school district violated her sons’ First Amendment rights by asking them to remove sweatshirts with the slogan “Let’s go Brandon” on them.

The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday against the Michigan Tri County Area Schools district, an assistant principal and a teacher, claims that their school censored her sons’ “peaceful, non-disruptive politics” by having them take off the sweatshirts, causing them “to suffer irreparable injury.”

The phrase “Let’s go Brandon,” born of a viral NASCAR race moment in October 2021, is understood to be code for swearing at President Biden, the lawsuit confirms. The slogan conveys the same opposition as saying a four-letter expletive and then “Joe Biden,” just “sanitized to express the sentiment without using profanity or vulgarity,” the suit said.

In February of 2022, the mother’s sixth-grade son wore a “Let’s go Brandon” sweatshirt to Tri County Middle School. The assistant principal at the school stopped him in the hallway and asked him to take it off, according to the lawsuit, telling him the slogan was equivalent to “the F-word.” He took it off because he feared getting in trouble.

The suit said the student wore the sweatshirt again in early 2022 and was asked by a teacher to take it off, adding, “I’ve told you before and won’t tell you again.” ... In May, the student’s older brother, an eighth-grader at the same school, was removed from class and asked to remove his “Let’s go Brandon” sweatshirt, according to the suit. ... The dispute centers on whether the phrase constitutes as profanity, said Conor Fitzpatrick, a lawyer at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, the organization representing the family.

The superintendent of Tri County Area Schools did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

{snip}

Mr. Fitzpatrick, who called the foundation “proudly nonpartisan” and noted that it had recently defended the rights of college students to host a drag show on campus, said free speech is in danger across the country. “There is a worrying tendency on both sides of the aisle to censor speech that they don’t like rather than just disagreeing with it,” he said. ... “Finding creative ways around swearing at school is as old as swearing itself,” Mr. Fitzpatrick said, and when students “do it with respect to political expression, it’s squarely protected by the First Amendment.”