Posted on 07/08/2009 8:59:24 AM PDT by micheknows
American Life League
A California mom says her public school administrators violated her daughter's First Amendment rights when they ordered the seventh-grader to take off her pro-life T-shirt.
Anna Amador has gone to court on behalf of her daughter, who she says was ordered by her principal to change her shirt on "National Pro-Life T-Shirt Day." The shirt the girl was wearing displays two graphic pictures of a fetus growing in the womb.
The incident occurred in April 2008 at McSwain Elementary School, a K-8 school in Merced, Calif. Amador alleges in her legal complaint that school Principal Terrie Rohrer, Assistant Principal C.W. Smith and office clerk Martha Hernandez mistreated her daughter and denied the girl her First Amendment rights when they ordered her to leave the
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Kids backs are not bill boards, issue already settled by courts.
No offense, but since when do kids get to make political statements about abortion at school? This kid is being used as a political pawn. Put a solid shirt on the kid, get her back to school and learning, and stop fighting these battles through your kids, you jackball.
Dress code.
True, the woman in the case is to stupid to understand dress code!!!
"The complaint quotes school district officials saying that they ordered Amador's daughter to remove the shirt because it constituted "inappropriate subject matter" in violation of the school's dress code, which bans clothing with "suggestion of tobacco, drug or alcohol use, sexual promiscuity, profanity, vulgarity, or other inappropriate subject matter."
Amador claims in the legal complaint that other students at the school have been allowed to wear expressive shirts, and she blames the school for “inconsistently applying their Dress Code based upon subjective determinations as to which messages are acceptable and which messages are not.”
Stop hiding behind the kid. Let her get an education. The parents should be ashamed. It's beyond the pale.
Yep. Parents need to let their kids be kids. Besides political posturing the parents today expect their kids to excell in at least 15 after school activities, win the school science fair and volunteer to at minimum 5 charities.
What happened to the days of sitting in the back yard looking up at the clouds, working on your hot rod Camaro, riding your horse and playing frisbee with the dog?
Ridiculous. I am pro-life but to have my kids wear a tee shirt with a baby on it and then a dark block is not something I would do. Uniforms would fix this in a heartbeat. I really wish they would just throw on uniforms for all kids. We don’t have these problems at Catholic School. Oh by the way, kids were pro-abortion tee shirts too...How ridiculous.
If the school district advocates abortion as a viable option through its sex ed curriculum, and the child does have a pro-life view of the world (I know my soon to be 7th grader does), then she has every right to wear a pro-life shirt, as the school opened the door to discussion on the matter.
Now, as to whether having fetus’s emblazoned across the front of the shirt, that is another matter.
Personally, I’d wager the mom is right that the district, or at least different district officials, applies the dress code unevenly and that she has a case there. I’ve seen it multiple times where an administrator/teacher abuses their position to push an agenda, while using it to stifle opposition. Most of the time, it’s the liberals who abuse this trust.
Most school systems only enforce the ‘dress code’ when it applies to someone who does not have the same moral/political viewpoint. Kids should be permitted to wear what they want as long as there isn’t vulgar language or promotes drugs/alcohol.
The problem is many of these teachers have murdered a baby, and are offended.
Did it occur to anyone here that this “child” might actually have an opinion of her own? I certainly have been politically aware since about the sixth grade, so it isn’t outside the realm of possibility that this kid actually wore this shirt of her own volition. Sometimes I really think I’m on a liberal board here...you people should be outraged that there is a double standard being applied here. If schools aren’t the place for honest discussions about life changing topics then I don’t know where they should be discussed. And seeing as it was National Pro-Life Shirt day (granted it’s not a nationally sanctioned day), don’t you think it made sense for her to wear it to promote her viewpoint?
This leads to a slippery slope. What's next? Pro Gay/Nambla shirts? Keep to the dress code.
See post #13
The U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to suspend a dress code at a suburban San Diego high school that was challenged by a student who wore a T-shirt with anti-gay language.
Tyler Chase Harper sued the Poway Unified School District in 2004 to overturn a policy calling for schools to reduce or prevent “hate behavior,” including threats and attacks based on sexual orientation.
Harper had been pulled from class for wearing a T-shirt that read, “Homosexuality is shameful” on the front and, “Be ashamed. Our school has embraced what God has condemned,” on the back.
In Loco Parentis
Since when do kids in school have rights? Can a kid just start ranting in any class at any time? Can a kid just come and go as he pleases? Are kids not punished without a trial?
> two graphic pictures of a fetus growing in the womb
Interesting choice of words. Pictures of aborted babies might well be considered graphic, but there’s nothing graphic about seeing a whole fetus in utero.
The word "graphic" has no negative connotations. It simply means that an image was any of the following: delineated, pictorial, picturesque, vivid, vividly depicted, descriptive, expressive; concrete, explicit, specific; faithful, lifelike, natural, realistic; fresh, incisive, sharp.
After reading the majority of the comments posted on this, I am getting a much better understanding of why our Constitution has become just so much old, yellowed, paper.
“Schools have a lot more authority than the government does in regulating speech...” was one quote from the article. It’s a PUBLIC school, for God’s sake! It IS the freaking government. You all act like a school is some all-powerful entity that we dare not question. Here you have a middle school student, without her parents being notified, being intimidated and abused (by a lackey clerk, no less), three on one. When you’re OK with the government controlling your children this way, as adults they will be so used to it they won’t know anything else. We’ll have become a totalitarian state without lifting a finger to stop it.
“This leads to a slippery slope.”
Oh, no. Not a child who thinks. Can’t have that, especially a girl. Best put her in a burkha and beat her if she tries to leave the house.
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