Obama T-shirt case not a First Amendment issue

Eleven-year-old Daxx Dalton, a fifth-grader in Aurora, Colo., was suspended Sept. 18 after refusing to remove his T-shirt when told to by school employees. This would hardly be an issue — and would, in fact, be common in most public school districts — were it not for the fact that the T-shirt in question was a handmade anti-Obama shirt.

The shirt, with the slogan “Obama: a terrorist’s best friend,” was grounds for the boy’s suspension, early reports said, so much so that naturally reactionary types jumped to the case, looking for a First Amendment infringement. However, (most of) the editorial board has a few fundamental problems.

First, the Aurora Public School’s dress code policy, included in a standard-issue student handbook, states the following: “Any type of attire which attracts undue attention to the wearer, and thus causes a disturbance to the educational process is in bad taste and not acceptable. While preserving the individuality of our students is important, we also see the importance of preserving the educational process.”

This seems, to us, like a perfectly reasonable decision and in keeping with the stated purpose of government-run public schools, which is to provide a learning environment free of distraction. And the shirt was indeed intended to be a distraction; the boy’s father, Dann Dalton, told an interview with the local Fox affiliate in which he stated, “I am not one to sit there and say that, you know, I don’t want to offend somebody, because the truth offends a lot of people.”

But the shirt, in spite of early reports, was not disruptive for the reasons our more reactionary colleagues might think.

In a statement released by the Aurora Public School district, the young man was involved in a loud argument before school, with screaming and violent discourse that carried over into the boy’s math class. The boy’s actions drew attention to his shirt, and therefore the shirt, rightly or wrongly, was isolated as the cause for the attention. Thus the distraction was ultimately due to the boy’s actions, which are punishable, rather than the boy’s shirt, which, despite recent limitations (such as the famous “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” case) to the landmark Tinker v. Des Moines case, would not have been actionable without some further disruption.

Compounding this evidence is the fact that the boy’s sister, unnamed thus far in press reports, was wearing a similar anti-Obama shirt, but was not deemed a disturbance. Clearly the problems lie in the young man’s individual actions and not his message.

We cannot feel too bad that a vigilant public is watching for First Amendment infringements (would that they had been paying closer attention as of late!). But in spite of what a few members of a sensitive public may think, in our opinion, this boils down merely to the disruptive actions of a little boy in his math class, and nothing more.

— Corey Craft, James Jaillet and Breckan Duckworth