There is an interesting free speech case brewing in West Virginia where Jared Marcum, 14, has been criminally charged for refusing to remove a T-shirt with National Rifle Association’s logo and hunting rifle. The T-shirt was found in violation of Logan Middle School’s dress code. However, regardless of how you feel about gun rights, the T-shirt was the expression of a recognized constitutional right and constitutes political speech.
Marcum was waiting in line for lunch when a teacher ordered him to remove the T-shirt or to turn it inside out. He refused and was sent to the principal’s office. The police were called and Marcum insisted that there is no rule prohibiting the T-Shirt. He said that the officer told him to sit down and, when he continued to assert his rights, he was arrested.
He was charged him with disrupting an educational process and obstructing an officer. The charges sound suspicious since if he made any serious effort to resist, he would have been charged with resisting arrest and assault of an officer.
The dress code itself prohibits clothing and accessories that display profanity, violence, discriminatory messages or sexually suggestive phrases. I do not see how this fits any more than a T-shirt proclaiming evolution as a theory or peace as a movement.
The dress code does prohibit advertisements for any alcohol, tobacco, or drug product but that would not fit this case.
T-Shirts have long been the target of attempted censorship. In Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971), the United States Supreme Court case overturned a man’s conviction for disturbing the peace for wearing a jacket that displayed the phrase, “Fuck the Draft” in a courthouse. Students have also received such protection. In Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969), the Supreme Court supported the first amendment rights of Iowa residents John F. Tinker (15 years old), John’s younger sister Mary Beth Tinker (13 years old), and their friend Christopher Eckhardt (16 years old) in wearing black armbands in protest of the Vietnam War. In his majority decision, Justice Abe Fortas held that “undifferentiated fear or apprehension of disturbance is not enough to overcome the right to freedom of expression.” In a statement would would seem to fit this case, Fortas found that “the record does not demonstrate any facts which might reasonably lead school authorities to forecast substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities, and no disturbances or disorders on the school premises in fact occurred.”
Of course, since Tinker, the Supreme Court has steadily limited the speech rights of students as in the ruling in the “Bong Hits For Jesus” case. Ironically, this trend might be slowed by a case where the expression concerns second amendment rights. However, it is hard to believe that the district will persist in this arrest. Unfortunately, it is also part of a trend toward the criminalization of our schools where disciplinary issues are now being handed over to the police.
This seems a case of over-reaction by a teacher and a failure of the school administrators to take steps to deal appropriately with this issue short of an arrest.
Source: Daily Mail
How about all the black men in Connecticut that are arrested and prosecuted for nothing. Where is the story on that? Why is it when a white boy is arrested for nothing it is a story but when it is a black man, no one cares about it???
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lotta, I was also culpable, expecting you had read comments a day prior. No harm, no foul.
Nick, Thelma, Louise, Sorry, my bad. I’ll stow my opposition until an actual insult comes along. 🙂
Gyges, I agree, there are degrees and licences in education for a reason. I have some very old fashioned and conservative attitudes about schooling and education. It serves a valid function of the state for the benefit of the state and socializes children by providing at its most basic level, if it’s working properly, a sheltering gateway to the wider society. Calling the police in to deal with little kids for being little kids is just organized sadism IMO. Once is too often.
Thanks, Thelma and Louise. And, I’m cool w/ lotta.
nick,
I coulda just left you hanging but honor is my middle name … 😉 … and don’t hold it against lotta … she’s good people
lotta,
Nick’s remark was in response to a joke I directed at him yesterday on a different thread but you couldn’t be expected to know that. He’s not a gun nut so we can kid with him without getting our heads blown off.
nick, I will vouch for that.
lotta, I had good natured exchanges w/ Blouise, Elaine, and SWM about guns yesterday. That was to whom my comment was directed. Lighten up, life’s to short!
expect more of this if the idea of armed guards at every school goes through.
However, regardless of how you feel about gun rights
I don’t think guns have rights at all. I mean, they aren’t even alive.
(sorry)
Lotta,
BTW, I’m one of those socialists that think home schooling and vouchers are un-American but the more I read about children being criminalized for school infraction the more I have to re-evaluate how I would educate my hypothetical kids.
Allow me to get on a soup box (and this isn’t directed at you, but it’s a good stepping off point):
Teaching’s a skill. Especially teaching subjects like science and math. There’s a reason that after the first few years they have separate teachers for different subjects.
If you want to shape your kid’s education, join the PTSA, schooboard, and volunteer. But please, leave the teaching to the professionals.
A sexist non-sequitur to start your posting; if that was a pejorative to the commenters you’re out of line, if it refers to the incident the numbers aren’t on your side. Stay classy nick.
Why it’s almost like he’s trying to intentionally get people angry and annoyed.
nick spinelli: 1, April 22, 2013 at 10:45 am
Sorry, women..but this is fundamental first amendment.
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A sexist non-sequitur to start your posting; if that was a pejorative to the commenters you’re out of line, if it refers to the incident the numbers aren’t on your side. Stay classy nick.
Complaining teacher – male
Principle – female
Cop – male
3 opportunities to demonstrate common sense, follow the letter of the policy and respect the Constitution – all failed.
BTW, I’m one of those socialists that think home schooling and vouchers are un-American but the more I read about children being criminalized for school infraction the more I have to re-evaluate how I would educate my hypothetical kids. This is the most disturbing trend in our culture IMO. When a culture starts using the full weight of the criminal justice system to enforce arbitrary school policies on kids- some of them so young as to have no real concept of right and wrong- then has not the school system become a terrorist organization? Is the aim not to terrorize our young proto-citizens into compliance with the political aim of ‘good order’ and bowing to authority? These kinds of activities reek of oppression.
http://www.aclu.org/racial-justice/school-prison-pipeline
Just do a Google on “6 year old arrested” and keep upping the age- news reports abound of children being arrested at schools for insane reasons. Here’s the list of related searches listed under “6 year old…”:
Searches related to 6 year old student arrested
6 year old arrested for a tantrum
creekside elementary 6 year old arrested
six year old handcuffed
6 year old in handcuffs
six year old gets handcuffed
6 year old arrested for temper tantrum
6 year old arrested for playing doctor
6 year old arrested for playing tag
The actions of this school are just what citizens can expect from our government if no protections were in place.
“This is not a teacher thing. This is an administration thing because the teacher was following his/her marching orders.”
The five teachers the boy encountered in classes before lunch didn’t have a problem with the t-shirt. It sounds more like one blowhard teacher overreacting.
This kid needs a lawyer to sue these astardBays post haste.
This is an example of what happens when we put police officers into schools. Normal school issues and problems are elevated to criminal offenses. This is not a teacher thing. This is an administration thing because the teacher was following his/her marching orders. I had a similar situation like this with a high school student who was stopped on the street with an offensive t-Shirt (according to the officer) and he told him he wouldn’t arrest him if he turned it inside out. The student was arrested, but the case was dismissed.
”disrupting an educational process ”
When we moved to Houston in ’71, my brother & I had to get our hair cut “so we wouldn’t/couldn’t encourage ”sex drugs & R&R”
I wish I was joking… shortly thereafter….
When William Wayne Justice (The most hated man in Texas, according to a popular bumper sticker) ruled against the junior college in the long-hair case (college officials argued that the hair regulation was essential for maintaining discipline and a proper educational environment), the reaction in town was that the ruling would destroy the college.
Wayne’s Obit
http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/judge-william-wayne-justice-rip
The police should only be called in when there is no other recourse. This is happening all too often. Police are called in to arrest, handcuff, and haul away children of all ages for trivial matters.
Obviously a bs arrest and harassment. I agree he should sue, but I’d much rather he sue the police officer, teacher, and principal instead of suing the deep pockets.
Either that or sue for mega mega bucks with the offer that if the people who actually committed the crime are fired, then no money is expected,.
Bogus arrest. He should sue the bastids.
Reblogged this on Vatterott OKC Paralegal Studies and commented:
Do you think this is a violation of his First Amendment Rights?