The U.S. Supreme Court declined today to hear case from a Texas student challenging his school’s prohibition of political T-shirts.
The Court will not hear Palmer v. Waxahachie Independent School District, which questioned the school’s “content neutral” dress code.
Education Week’s School Law blog has more details:
In the T-shirt case, a student and his parents appealed a decision last August by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, in New Orleans, that upheld the denial of a preliminary injunction sought by Paul Palmer, a student at Waxahachie (Texas) High School. In 2007, Palmer sought permission to wear shirts with messages supporting the presidential campaign of John Edwards, as well as another shirt extolling free speech and the First Amendment.
School officials said the shirts violated a dress code that permits only small logos or symbols of school clubs or promoting school spirit. The dress code does allow political messages on buttons, pins, and wrist bands.
Palmer and his parents sued under the First Amendment, arguing that wearing of the shirts would not disrupt school, that they were not drug-related or sexually explicit, and that their wearing would not appear as school-sponsored speech and thus would be protected expression.
The family lost in both a federal district court and in the 5th Circuit, which ruled Aug. 13 that the dress code’s restriction on messages was a content-neutral regulation of speech.
Richard Winger, of Ballot Access news, also has this report. CCP blogged on this case in November, urging the Court to take up the case. We’re disappointed they’ve decided to let schools control student speech — at least in the Fifth Circuit.
