A Win for Pro-Life Free Speech

What you see below is the front of a T-shirt from American Life League that was used for their 2008 pro-Life T-shirt Day. IMHO it was 1 of the best designs they ever came up for their T-shirt day (now week). & from what I understand, a lot of others feel the same way.

However, school officials at at McSwain Union Elementary School in Merced CA didn't think so. When Tiffany Amador, then in 6th grade, showed up at school on 29 April 2008 wearing 1 of these shirts that had been given her by her church. As she explained at the trial, that she wore the shirt to school because she wanted other students to known that “abortion is wrong.” However, she was told that the images of the baby were “disruptive” to the school environment because of their “graphic nature” . But in the end, they could not explain what made them so graphic that they would have caused any disruption, much less a substantial one as required by the Supreme Court (more on that below).

Amador also alleged in the lawsuit that her 4th Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search & seizure was violated when the school’s secretary forcefully pulled her into the principal’s office because of her T-shirt. She also said she was denied her 14th Amendment right of equal protection. The judgment was entered on all claims.

Los Angeles attorney William J. Becker, Jr., of The Becker Law Firm, assisted in the case by attorney Rob Muise of the Thomas More Law Center, filed suit on her behalf. After the judgment was entered, Becker made the following statement: “This judgment represents a victory for the right to speak out against abortion. Public school students are not forbidden from proclaiming the value of life under the First Amendment. The school has done the right thing by avoiding a trial and allowing a judgment to be entered in favor of this student on all claims. All Americans, no matter their age, are free to exercise their constitutional right to speak out against the barbarism of on-demand abortion, and that includes public school students who do so in a non-disruptive manner.

Public school employees work for the government. Any time a school official uses physical force to suppress non-disruptive student expression, the government has gone way too far in enforcing its own political views.

Student speech at all grade levels is protected by the First Amendment. With few exceptions, such as profanity and lewdness, the Constitution prohibits school officials from picking and choosing what messages they find acceptable and what messages they find unacceptable. The message of the shirt was that life demands respect. This is a particularly vital message for vulnerable young girls. The pictures conveyed a message that could not be misunderstood, and that frightened school authorities, who are left without meaningful guidance as to what students can and cannot say. Perhaps they will be less prone to trampling a student’s rights.”

Judie Brown, president of ALL, had this to say: "So often, pro-life students learn that free speech is a constitutional right that, in practice at least, doesn’t apply to them. For too long, pro-abortion demagogues have had a stranglehold on the country’s educational institutions and have sought to stifle dissenting opinions – by force, if necessary, as seen in this case. We are so grateful to Tiffany for her courage in the face of injustice – both the bloody injustice of abortion and the tyrannical injustice of government institutions violating free speech rights.”

I am not surprized that she won. Her right to wear the shirt was settled back in 1969 in the case of Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (393 U.S. 503). This case was about a December 1955 incident that involved the wearing of black armbands with peace symbols on them by 3 Des Moines, IA students to protest the Vietnam war & supporting the Christmas Truce called for by Senator Robert F. Kennedy. The 3 students were 2 high schoolers, John F. Tinker (15 years old) & friend Christopher Eckhardt (16 years old); & junior high student Mary Beth Tinker (13 years old).

The principals of the Des Moines schools had adopted a policy banning the wearing of armbands to school. Violating students would be suspended & only allowed to return to school after agreeing to comply with the policy. The 3 students were ssupended until after 1 January 1966, when their protest had been scheduled to end. Eventually the suit reached the US Supreme Court. The Court ruled in favor of the students.

The 7 to 2 decision held that the First Amendment applied to public schools, & that administrators would have to demonstrate constitutionally valid reasons for any specific regulation of speech in the classroom. The court observed, "It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate." Justice Abe Fortas in the majority opinion, held that the speech regulation at issue in Tinker was "based upon an urgent wish to avoid the controversy which might result from the expression, even by the silent symbol of armbands, of opposition to this Nation's part in the conflagration in Vietnam."

The Court also held that in order for school officials to justify censoring speech, they "must be able to show that [their] action was caused by something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint," & that they could only forbid conduct that would "materially and substantially interfere with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school."

In this case the discomfort & unpleasantness the administrators sought to avoid was theirs at having to face the reality of what abortion does. Clearly opposing abortion is unpopular among the school's administration & they simply wanted to silence a viewpoint they didn't like. They sought to avoid controversy simply because they support abortion. You can be sure if the shirts had opposed the Iraq war, or mocked Bush or supported gay marriage the school's administration would have defended the person's free speech rights rather than attempt to squelch them.

Sadly incidents like this are more common that the public schools would like to admit. & not just for this event. Students have been hassled throughout the year at different schools for wearing Pro-life T-shirts. ALL has a letter that students can print out that references "Tinker" & what to do should their rights be denied.

Becker is is litigating a similar case in Morgan Hill, Calif., involving students who were ordered to remove their American flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo. I suspect that he will also win that case.

Sources: Judgment Vindicates Calif. Student Punished for Pro-Life T-Shirt
Free speech victory for silenced pro-life Calif. student: Judgment ends lawsuit against K-8 school Student Wins Free Speech Case in Federal Court