A high school student was briefly suspended, then re-admitted (upon advice of lawyer to the school), for wearing a pro-war T-shirt.
Derik Rosario, 15, whose mother is a Marine master sergeant fighting in Kuwait, wore a T-shirt that read, “War: Justifiable Homicide” to school Friday morning, the same day an anti-war protest was scheduled at the school.
According to the school, he and a few other boys wearing pro-war T-shirts were asked early Friday morning to turn the shirts inside out or face suspension in order to prevent conflict with the war protesters.
“I looked at the shirts, and I pictured the protest that morning, and I saw a situation that could turn ugly or dangerous,” said Principal Ron Briggs. “So I asked them, for safety reasons, to turn the shirts inside out.”
First off, why would the principal be worried about an “ugly or dangerous” situation with anti-war protesters?
Secondly, why should the political statements of pro-war students have to give way to anti-war students? Why should the rally trump a t-shirt?
I suspect it was the latter point that led a district lawyer to suggest that the principal might want to reverse the suspension.
And, for what it’s worth, the shirt did not cause a disturbance. And the principal says he’s “proud” of Derik for standing up for his rights.
Same reason a student was suspended for wearing an anti-war shirt last month. He was suspeneded by the Principal, who when trying to justify the suspension, cited the Minority Supreme Court opinion.
Heh.
Minority opinions often have some fine quotes in them (and are often cited in majority opinions later), but don’t really constitute law at the moment.