Student Dress Goads
1994; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 75; Issue: 7 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1940-6487
Autores Tópico(s)Education Discipline and Inequality
ResumoDURING 1992-93 school year, Jeffrey and Jonathan Pyle were high school students in South Hadley (Massachusetts) School District. Jeffrey was a senior, and Jonathan was a sophomore. Their father is a professor of political science at Mount Holyoke College. His special interest is constituonal law. At start of school year, brothers wore T-shirts to school that got their in trouble. Jeffrey's shirt mixed an anti-alcohol message with a repeated reference to male genitalia: Drink. See Drive. See Die. Be a Dick. Jonathan's shirt was more straightforward in its sexual suggestiveness: Coed Naked Band; Do It to Rhythm. School officials banned boys from wearing these shirts at school. Their justification for ban was two fold First. they maintained that T-shirts' suggestive and (to some) vulgar mode of communication interfered with school's basic, educational Second, they argued that sexually charged messages were demeaning to women. Professor Pyle disagreed. He filed suit on h is sons' behalf in federal court, seeking a temporary restraining order against school administrators' action. He claimed that school officials had violated his sons' freedom of expression under First Amendment. The court denied plaintiffs' motion for preliminary injunctive relief.(1) The magistrate judge began his legal analysis with Supreme Court's 1969 decision in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District. In this famous case involving students wearing armbands in school, Court ruled that school officials may not discipline student expression without evidence of nascent or actual substantial disruption. However, judge focused on language in Tinker with which Court ducked question of constitutionality of regulating] [. . . length of skirts or type of clothing. . . . hair style, or deportment, and he emphasized issue of whether or not 'speech or action . . . intrudes upon work of school or rights of other students. Next, judge pointed to Supreme Court's more recent decision in Bethel School District v. Fraser, which upheld school officials' disciplining of a high school student for using sexual metaphors in a nominating speech at a school assembly.(2) More specifically, he repeated Court's marked distinction between political message of armbands in Tinker and sexual content of student's speech in Fraser. Finally, judge acknowledged die Supreme Court's most recent decision regarding student expression in Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier,(3) Which upheld school officials' censorship of a student newspaper containing articles about single parents and student pregnancy. Blurring boundary of school-sponsored student expression, which is principal way to reconcile Tinker with Fraser and Hazelwood, judge emphasized Supreme Court's deference to discretion of school administrators in deciding whether to prohibit student speech that is inconsistent with school's educational mission. Using this basic framework, judge found that Pyles' T-shirts bore far more resemblance to Fraser than to Tinker. Piercing political-speech veil of Don't Be a Dick T-shirt, judge commented that plaintiffs do not, and could not, seriously suggest that defendants are determined to suppress message that students should not drink and drive. Raising nightmarish specter of court's being mired in role of Dress Code Board of Appeals, judge reasoned that the fact that precise outline of what is acceptable may be a theme for disagreement among reasonable people does not suggest that no line may ever be drawn -- much less, that line is unconstitutional. As for line drawn by South Hadley school administrators, die court found support in both die immediate and broader contexts. …
Referência(s)