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I'm of the opinion that the kid was told not to wear the shirt and he did it anyway. The kid and his parents were wrong. The constitutional way to have the school policy changed is to elect school board members who support your ideas

Your “constitutional way” is not the only way. In fact, the Constitution prohibits punishment for refusal to obey an unconstitutional regulation. So it really doesn’t matter if Tom was previously warned not to wear the shirt. However, as someone who is involved in the case, I can tell you that he was NOT so warned.

the Constitution prohibits punishment for refusal to obey an unconstitutional regulation

I know this is a stretch, but would that mean refusing to obey the Boland Amendment (as in funding the Contras in Nicaragua) would not have been a punishable offense, since the Boland amendment was said to have been unconstitutional? (And is there a distinction between refusing to obey a "regulation" and refusing to obey a law?)

I'm not a lawyer, but apparently you are. I've always wondered if the 'Contra' part of the Iran-Contra scandal would have gone 'poof' if the Boland Amendment had been challenged in court.

So it really doesn’t matter if Tom was previously warned not to wear the shirt. However, as someone who is involved in the case, I can tell you that he was NOT so warned.

So the school had no policy regarding clothing that was appropriate and that which wasn't appropriate? I don't believe that for a minute.

But I suspect that you, Mr. AttorneyMan, would have a system where all parents submit clothing at the beginning of each year, and the schools then number, catagorize, and document each article.... specifically deciding on each piece of clothing that the child might wear. Of course all of the documents would need be drawn up by an attorney and approved by the court. An extensive system for challenging the decisions (because nobody really likes mediation) would need to be in place... and this process after appeals would take.... 2 or 3 years. And there would be needed requirements for mid year re-evaluation to make sure each of these kids gets a fair and prior ruling on all of their christmas clothes as well.

Public school is a taxpayer funded system of education. It is not a taxpayer funded platform for freespeech. If the kid wants to exercise his freespeech he has every right to do so on his own private property. You object to the system whereby the family takes part in the school board process by electing themselves or other parties that support their ideas for one basic reason. And that is because it doesn't take a lawyer to get it done. It just takes hard work on the part of the family.