Posted on 08/18/2005 3:33:01 PM PDT by dukeman
Federal court rules in favor of student and grants permanent injunction sought by ADF-allied attorneys
COLUMBUS, Ohio-- A federal district court today ruled in favor of attorneys allied with the Alliance Defense Fund and ordered an Ohio school district to respect the First Amendment rights of a student, declaring its treatment of the student unconstitutional.
The Northern Local School District prohibited the student, James Nixon, from wearing a T-shirt that one school official deemed "offensive" and "potentially disruptive" even though no disruption actually occurred.
"The Constitution does not permit censorship based upon what someone thinks 'might' happen," said ADF-allied attorney Rick Nelson of the American Liberties Institute based in Orlando, Fla. "The court has done the right thing by protecting our client's ability to exercise his First Amendment right to wear his T-shirt if he so chooses."
Nixon wore a black T-shirt with white lettering to school as a seventh grade student at Sheridan Middle School in Thornville on September 1 of last year. The front of the T-shirt contained a Bible verse; the back contained Nixon's viewpoint on homosexuality, Islam, and abortion. After learning of Nixon's T-shirt, school and district officials decided the T-shirt's message violated the district's Student Code of Conduct and prohibited Nixon from wearing the shirt to school.
According to the opinion issued today by U.S. District Court Judge George Smith in the case, Nixon v. Northern Local School District Board of Education, "there is no evidence that James' silent, passive expression of opinion interfered with the work of Sheridan Middle School or collided with the rights of other students to be let alone. Therefore, the Court rejects defendants' assertion that James' T-shirt invaded on the rights of others."
"Other students' mere disagreement with the message on James' T-shirt is not enough to outweigh James' constitutional right to free expression," Smith added. The full text of the court's opinion and order can be read at www.telladf.org/UserDocs/NixonOpinion.pdf.
"There was no legally acceptable basis for the school's actions; therefore, the court rightly declared its treatment of James unconstitutional," Nelson explained. "This is an important victory for the free religious expression rights of students in America's public schools."
ADF is also involved in a similar lawsuit in California involving a Poway High School student who was prohibited from wearing a T-shirt to school that expressed his religious views on homosexual behavior.
ADF is America's largest legal alliance defending religious liberty through strategy, training, funding, and litigation.
Thanks for posting what the shirt said. I like it!
When my daughter was in HS 3 years ago, the old tshirts with messages that were allowed there the sports teams of the their school or the names of colleges.
Anything else what forbidden and notes were sent home. That even even included the logo for Major League Sports Teams (too disruptive).
The provocation is more with the teachers and administrators in the pork-barrel public school system. If you take the T-shirts away from the students, you take away the one and only effective means to combat the former Students for a Democratic Society, the 1960's college communists now in control of our schools. In your face slogans are a tactic the Left uses effectively. The Right should be accorded the same right. Bravo for the judge.
However, students should not wear T-shirts to school. There should be a dress code or uniforms. Among others, it would eliminate a huge amount of distractions, lawsuits, controversies, etc.
The back of the shirt contains the following statements:
As am I.
Lots of good stuff happening in the People's Republic of California, these days. Check out the article in this thread for another one...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1462119/posts
You just wanna show the girl in the tank top again.......
That's right. Score one against GLSEN/NAMBLA's offensive and potentially disruptive "day of silence".
My bad... both very similar stories. Good for Ohio, though.
The kid wouldn't be wearing the shirt if he wasn' being taught and exposed to the opposite. He came with a message on a tee-shirt. History...Ahh yes, that would include American history, including the 1st Amendment's protection of Free speech. It would also include socialist countries use of uniforms and sanctions to force conformity. This time the court stood up for what's right. In contrast, it did not when it came down upholding the campaign rules.
Halle-freaking-lujah. All messages or no messages within the bounds of local obscenity laws.
When I was in school the idea of messages printed on clothing was nonexistent. That was more than three years ago.
Waste of time and money. I was against it when I was a kid, but school uniforms make more and more sense to me as I get older.
I'm pretty much where you are on the issue, but I do like it when free speech is vindicated.
Yar.
I KNOW you military types can be prescise, but 2.5 kids? That's just toilet training by gunpoint to be that particular. ;)
</sarcasm>
Paul
later pingout.
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