{"id":1416,"date":"2026-05-01T17:34:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T17:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/?p=1416"},"modified":"2026-05-01T18:32:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T18:32:33","slug":"prominent-first-amendment-legal-scholars-file-amicus-asking-supreme-court-to-review-lets-go-brandon-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/index.php\/prominent-first-amendment-legal-scholars-file-amicus-asking-supreme-court-to-review-lets-go-brandon-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Prominent First Amendment Legal Scholars File Amicus Asking Supreme Court to Review ‘Let\u2019s Go Brandon’ Case"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Cornell Law School First Amendment Clinic filed<\/a> an amicus brief on April 30, 2026, in D.A. v. Tri County Area Schools,<\/em> supporting a writ of certiorari before the United States Supreme Court in a case addressing the scope of student-speech rights.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two middle school students, represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (\u201cFIRE\u201d), sued their Michigan school district for forcing them to remove sweatshirts reading \u201cLet\u2019s Go Brandon,\u201d a phrase widely understood as expressing a political viewpoint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The District Court for the Western District of Michigan held that school administrators had \u201creasonably interpreted\u201d the phrase as \u201cprofane\u201d and the school\u2019s action against the students did not violate the students\u2019 First Amendment rights. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, relying on Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser<\/em>, 478 U.S. 675 (1986), affirmed in October 2025, finding the euphemism conveyed a vulgar message that could be prohibited despite its political message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Clinic represents a group of First Amendment legal scholars\u2014Clay Calvert, Erwin Chemerinsky, Roy Gutterman, Heather E. Murray, Daniel Novack, Joseph A. Tomain, Eugene Volokh, and Sonja R. West\u2014in arguing that \u201cthe decision below impermissibly extends the authority of public-school officials to penalize students for expressing political viewpoints in the school environment that are neither sexually explicit or profane, nor disruptive to the learning process.\u201d Specifically, the amicus brief argues that by deferring to the school\u2019s interpretation of a popular political phrase as \u201cprofane,\u201d the court improperly ignored the test established by the Supreme Court in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District<\/em>, 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 asks the Court to grant certiorari to clarify that Fraser<\/em> does not give school districts broad authority to censor political speech that is neither disruptive nor facially vulgar or profane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the supervision of Adjunct Professor Michael Grygiel and Stanton Fellow Daniela del Rosario Wertheimer, Clinic students Lexie Kapilian \u201926, Jason Blau \u201927 and Luke Wyatt \u201927 worked to develop and write the amici brief over the course of the spring 2026 semester.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Grygiel, \u201cIt is 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.\u00a0 Our students\u2019 work underscored the basic First Amendment principle that when political viewpoints \u2013 regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum \u2013 are communicated without using sexualized expression or profanity, they are protected.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more about the case and see the amicus filing here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Cornell Law School First Amendment Clinic filed an amicus brief on April 30, 2026, in D.A. v. Tri County Area Schools, supporting a writ of certiorari before the United States Supreme Court in a case addressing the scope of student-speech rights.   Two middle school students, represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1416"}],"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\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1416"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1429,"href":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1416\/revisions\/1429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}