{"id":1004,"date":"2025-02-11T19:54:37","date_gmt":"2025-02-11T19:54:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/?p=1004"},"modified":"2025-05-21T17:49:15","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T17:49:15","slug":"clinic-represents-first-amendment-scholars-to-protect-student-speech-rights-in-sixth-circuit-appeal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/index.php\/clinic-represents-first-amendment-scholars-to-protect-student-speech-rights-in-sixth-circuit-appeal\/","title":{"rendered":"Clinic Represents First Amendment Scholars to Protect Student Speech Rights in Sixth Circuit Appeal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The First Amendment Clinic filed a brief of amici curiae<\/a> in December in D.A. v. Tri County Area Schools <\/em>in the Sixth Circuit supporting two middle school students who were punished for their in-school political speech. Represented by<\/a> the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (\u201cFIRE\u201d), the students sued their Michigan school district for forcing them to remove sweatshirts reading \u201cLet\u2019s Go Brandon,\u201d a phrase that has become a rallying cry for some conservative voices across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The District Court for the Western District of Michigan, holding that school administrators had \u201creasonably interpreted\u201d the phrase as \u201cprofane\u201d, determined that the school\u2019s action against the students did not violate the students\u2019 First Amendment rights. The students appealed to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, where a decision is now pending. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Clinic represented a group of First Amendment legal scholars\u2014Erwin Chemerinsky, Clay Calvert, Roy Gutterman, Mary-Rose Papandrea, and Joseph A. Tomain\u2014in arguing that the Western District of Michigan failed to apply the proper constitutional standard in rendering its decision. Specifically, the brief argues that by deferring to the school\u2019s interpretation of a popular political phrase as \u201cprofane,\u201d the district court improperly ignored the test established by the Supreme Court in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District<\/em><\/a>, 393 U.S. 503 (1969).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Tinker<\/em>, the Court held that a school may only prohibit student expression in the school environment that communicates a political message when the expression creates a \u201csubstantial disruption of or material interference with school activities.\u201d The scholars\u2019 brief pointed out that school administrators in D.A. v. Tri County Area Schools<\/em> acknowledged that the students\u2019 \u201cLet\u2019s Go Brandon\u201d sweatshirts caused no such disruption, so the school could not have satisfied the Tinker<\/em> test even if it had been properly applied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scholars also made the case that other Supreme Court precedents limiting student free speech rights were inapplicable in this instance due to \u201cLet\u2019s Go Brandon\u2019s\u201d non-profane, political nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the supervision of Adjunct Professor Michael Grygiel and Stanton Fellow Daniela del Rosario Wertheimer, Clinic students Lexie Kapilian \u201826, Alex Strohl \u201825, and Robert Plafker \u201925 worked to develop and write the amici brief over the course of the fall 2024 semester.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Grygiel, \u201cIt is particularly essential in today\u2019s polarized climate that the free speech rights of public school students are protected when their expression does not result in a disruption to the school environment.  Our students\u2019 work underscored the basic First Amendment principle that when political beliefs \u2013 regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum \u2013 are communicated without using profanity, they are protected.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The First Amendment Clinic filed a brief of amici curiae in December in D.A. v. Tri County Area Schools in the Sixth Circuit supporting two middle school students who were punished for their in-school political speech. Represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (\u201cFIRE\u201d), the students sued their Michigan school district for forcing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13,9,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1004"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1005,"href":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004\/revisions\/1005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}