Legal News

Fightin? Fifth-Grader in Obama T-Shirt Causes Flap at Colorado School

By Dan Slater

Another week, another free speech flap in our nation’s public schools. This time, we head to Colorado, where 11-year-old Daxx Dalton (insert snide “Daxx” comment here) has been suspended for refusing to remove a homemade t-shirt that reads: “Obama is a terrorist’s best friend.” Dalton’s suspension was reportedly for willful disobedience and defiance, not for wearing the shirt.

The response from Dalton — a fifth grader at Aurora Frontier K-8 School who wore the shirt on a day when students were asked to to show their patriotism by wearing red, white and blue — demonstrated some lawyer promise: “They’re taking away my right of freedom of speech,” he said. “If I have the right to wear this shirt I’m going to use it. And if the only way to use it is get suspended, then I’m going to get suspended.”

Dann Dalton, Daxx’s father, told MyFOXColorado.com that the school is making a mistake by suspending his son and that he intends to sue the district. “It’s the public school system,” he said. “Let’s be honest, it’s full of liberal loons.”

The school district would not discuss the case with Fox, but said the district “respects a student’s right to free speech, such as the right to wear specific clothing” while reserving the right to review any situation that interrupts the learning environment.

E. Christopher Murray, a partner at New York law firm Reisman, Peirez and Reisman and the president of the New York chapter of the Civil Liberties Union sent the Law Blog the following in an e-mail: “The wearing of this t-shirt can only be prohibited if it could cause a risk of material disruption at the school,” wrote Murray. “It is hard to see how this t-shirt could be viewed this way. Students have a constitutional right to express their opinions about politics, and this t-shirt was not vulgar or anything other than a political statement. While the courts have recently cut back on student’s rights of expression, this case clearly seems to be an illegal curtailment of this student’s rights. ”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on September 23, 2008 (boomark / email).