Anna Amador, the mother of a seventh grader at McSwain Elementary School in Merced, Calif. is taking legal action after her daughter was forced to remove a pro-life t-shirt she wore to school for National Pro-life T-Shirt Day in April 2008, according to a recent
article. The shirt features two graphic images of fetuses in the womb with the word "growing" under them. Next to those images, there is a blank black square, captioned "gone."
The complaint alleges that the school principal, assistant principal and office clerk mistreated the child, allegedly forcing her to throw away her breakfast, dragging her away from the cafeteria, berating her, and demanding that she remove her shirt. Amador states that her daughter was humiliated in front of her classmates, none of whom were offended by the girl's shirt.
According to the complaint, the office clerk, forcibly dragged the girl to the principal's office, where she was told never to wear such a shirt again. The shirt was not returned to her until the end of the day.
District officials argue that not all of Amador's allegations are valid, but they do not deny that the girl was forced to remove her shirt. The district asserts that this particular shirt is not permissible under the dress code, which does not allow clothing that promotes "inappropriate subject matter" like tobacco, drug or alcohol use, sexual promiscuity, profanity or vulgarity.
Amador counterargues that the school applies this dress code subjectively and the pictures on her daughter's shirt can be found in school science textbooks.
Considering that McSwain houses grades kindergarten through 8, perhaps Amador doesn't have as strong an argument as she expected, as some forms of speech are seen as detrimental to younger kids. However, William Becker, Amador's lawyer, argues that there is nothing detrimental about the message on the young girl's shirt.
"The message of the T-shirt is that life is sacred," says Becker, a First Amendment attorney. "One would be very hard pressed to find anything wrong with that particular idea, except that some people do object to the political message."
Do you think it's okay for kids to be billboards for causes that they may or may not understand, pro-life or otherwise, in school? Do school officials have the right to demand that such clothing be removed?
Comments (2)
Hmm, as is I can't see any reason why she should remove the shirt. It's not like it displays the dismembered remnants of a fetus or something. Sounds more to me like she stepped on the wrong toes....
If anyone wants to be a pro-life billboard they should do so with actions of love and not menacing clothing.