You may remember Tyler Chase Harper, the Poway High School senior who sued his school to be allowed to wear a t-shirt with such homophobic messages as "Homosexuality is Shameful" and "Our School Embraced What God Condemned" to school. Last Thursday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a 2 to 1 desicion that the school was within its rights to censor Harper's political expression.
Harper wore a shirt with anti-gay rhetoric when he was a sophomore in 2004 to school on the day that the campus GSA organized a Day of Silence (on Wikipedia, official site). The year before, students opposed to gay rights had verbally and physically harassed the GSA students participating in the DoS. He was asked to change his shirt, and on refusing, was removed from class and did homework in a school conference room.
US District Judge John Houston distinguished this speech from that protected under
Tinker by saying that the shirt would cause a material disruption to the educational process, and was thus censor-able under
Tinker. Houston said that the shirt violated the rights of other students, particularly gay and lesbian students, since the shirt would be offensive to them.
No one has the right not to be offended. Was the shirt Harper wore offensive, homophobic, and in poor taste? Absolutely. Should he have worn it? Probably not. But was it a constitutionaly protected form of speech? Of course. There is no evidence Harper was planning on screaming his shirt's message at students participating in the Day of Silence, or attacking them with the shirt. Political expression is, of course, protected in a school. As a high school student, I would burn the building down(EDIT: I thought it was obvious that I didn't mean it literally, but just for the record, I would never commit arson period, expecially not because of a dress code issue) if they didn't let me wear a political shirt. What if they said, "The ACLU is offensive to some people, you can't wear that shirt here,"? I'd go crazy. But that is the sort of crap this ruling sets a precedent for.
We'll see it if it goes to the Supreme Court.