Posted on 06/23/2006 2:20:31 PM PDT by Coleus
Disciplining a student for wearing a $5 T-shirt five years ago could end up costing the Warren Hills Regional School District close to $1 million. The Warren County district has been ordered to pay nearly $600,000 in plaintiffs' legal fees incurred during the 5-year-old free speech rights battle over whether a high school student could wear his "redneck" T-shirt. That tally does not include the amount the district has paid its own lawyers.
Thomas Sypniewski Jr. was suspended for three days during his senior year in 2001 for wearing a T-shirt that listed blue-collar comedian Jeff Foxworthy's Top 10 reasons someone might be considered a redneck sports fan (Reason No. 4: Your bowling team has its own fight song). District officials said the T-shirt violated the high school's anti-harassment policy, enforced in the wake of racial incidents in which students referring to themselves as "Hicks" and "Rednecks" harassed black students.
Sypniewski, now 23, dropped his lawsuit against the district last month, saying he was working as a union carpenter and had moved on with his life. He maintained, however, that he wore the shirt simply because he thought it was funny. Foxworthy, whose catch phrase is, "You might be a redneck if ... ," makes fun of his roots in the rural South with references to tattoo parlors that have financing plans and to a friend who brought beer to a job interview. The $5 T-shirt stirred a national debate over free speech rights, as First Amendment experts and Foxworthy himself weighed in on the topic. And now the garment has gotten exponentially more expensive. U.S. Magistrate Judge Tonianne J. Bongiovanni has determined Warren Hills was responsible for $574,245 in legal fees incurred by Sypniewski's family to fight the suspension and school ruling.
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
Jeff Foxworthy believe it or not repaired mainframe computer equipment for IBM for many years and was encouraged to follow his talent for comedy by people close to him ,, if you want to see a man cringe ask him if he's ever changed a 3380-K HDA ... he is a very smart man.
...If your outdoor furniture used to be indoor furniture...
If your entertainment center consists of a bird feeder and a BB gun.
Gimme a d*mned break. Any case that does not involve the interests of at least 1,000 students, or 10% of the students in a given school or school system, should be EXCLUDED from federal jurisdiction. This is just a matter of common sense. And I would like to propose exactly such a bill in the Congress of the US.
P.S. Interested in a Freeper in Congress? Keep in touch with me.
Congressman Billybob
"If you've been on TV more than 5 times describing the sound of a tornado..."
"If you think the 12 to 18 lbs. on the side of the diaper box refers to how much it will hold..."
Are they really going to suspend a student over a T-Shirt about rednecks?>>>
they did, 4 yrs. ago, the case is finally settled. It will cost the school board or rather, the taxpayers more than $1 million.
If you're ever accused of 'lying through your tooth' you might be a redneck!
And the Federal legislature's jurisdiction. And the Federal Executive's jurisdiction. Would you explain to me again where the authority for the DoE and the "No Child Left Behind" act can be found among the enumerated powers of the Constitution?
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