Student can wear Bush-mocking T-shirt: court
A US student who sued school officials after he was made to censor his T-shirt that labelled President George W Bush “Chicken-Hawk-In-Chief” and a former alcohol and cocaine abuser won an appeal yesterday to wear the shirt to school. The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favour of Zachery Guiles, who through his parents claimed his free speech rights had been violated. School officials made him put duct tape over parts of his T-shirt that showed a Bush image surrounded by cocaine, a razor blade, a straw and a martini.
There are few threats more insidious and pervasive thanseventh-graders wearing T-shirts with messages opposing Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader. Yes, when seventh-graders learn to think for themselves, can it be long before they’re voting Democratic or burning their draft cards?
Of course, this is a public school we’re talking about here, and this is legal precedent to show that students have no rights at all. No, students in public schools are almost completely at the whim of narrow, judgemental ideologues posing as teachers and administrators. Hey, it’s tough to properly indoctrinate a child if he or she demands their “rights” be respected. Remember, when T-shirts expressing anti-Bush sentiments are outlawed, only terrorists will wear T-shirts expressing anti-Bush sentiments.
Guiles, who as a seventh grader in 2004 wore the T-shirt to Williamstown Middle High School in Vermont once a week for two months after purchasing it at an anti-war rally, appealed the case after a lower court ruled in favour of the school.
The school argued the images were offensive because they undermined the school’s anti-drug message.
The T-shirt read “George W Bush” and “Chicken-Hawk-In-Chief” with a picture of the president’s face wearing a helmet superimposed on the body of a chicken.
The back of the T-shirt showed lines of cocaine, a martini glass and smaller print that accused Bush of being a “Crook”, “Cocaine Addict”, “AWOL”, “Draft Dodger” and “Lying Drunk Driver” . The appeals court said while the T-shirt “uses harsh rhetoric and imagery to express disagreement with the president’s policies and to impugn his character”, the images depicted “are not plainly offensive as a matter of law”. The court agreed with the lower court that ruled Guiles’ suspension from school should be expunged from his record.
It’s refreshing to know that the mere fact of being a seventh-grader doesn’t also mean that you are chattel, devoid of rights and the property of adults. In our post-9.11 all-paranoid, all the time world, I’m frankly surprised that Guiles was victorious…’cuz you never know what a shifty middle-schooler is capable of. Today, T-shirts…tomorrow, anti-war protests? Man, the next thing you know, children will be thinking critically and independently. Chaos, disorder, and democracy will reign. It’ll be messy, but it’ll also be a beautiful sight to behold.
