The ACLU and Dress Codes: Are Thongs Protected Speech?

Custom-made fit for school: Dress codes, student uniforms back in style

...critics dispute the benefits and argue dress codes and school uniforms restrict students' free speech.

Justin Taylor, a 10th-grader at Alabama's Fayette County High School, which doesn't have a strict dress code, says any move toward uniforms would take choices out of his hands.

"I wouldn't like it. I just wouldn't like wearing the same things over and over again every day," Justin says. "I would rather wear what I wanted."

Boo, hoo...and I'd rather be independently wealthy.

"I would rather wear what I wanted" hardly rises to the level of protected speech.

In 2004, Timothy Gies, a senior at Bay City Central High School in Michigan, was suspended several times for wearing shirts and sweat shirts with anarchy symbols, peace signs, upside-down American flags and an anti-war quote from Albert Einstein.

Alright, this is political speech and therefore protected...unless it significantly disrupts the educational mission. The upside-down flag may very well be inflamatory and disruptive in that community. On the other hand, suspending someone for an Einstein quote was probably a mistake.

This all depends on the dress code, though. If the code says, "plain white shirts, plain blue sweaters, no slogans, quotes, or political symbols" then he broke the dress code. I can't tell from this or other articles...anyone know?

The mission of the district and the standards of the community trump the allegedly symbolic speech of the clothing.

As far as I know, education has long been a community issue--and the community is well within its rights to enforce its own community standards in schools, as long as they do so consistently and without discrimination against race, religion, or specific forms of speech.

Of course, that doesn't stop the ACLU from butting in...

"ACLU opposes dress codes -- we believe students have a right of free expression, a part of which is expressing their individuality through the clothes that they wear," Steinberg says. "And parents can control the clothes their children wear, but it should not be a matter that the state dictates."

So, would a thong be protected speech?

If the federal governement or even the state government tried to impose a dress code, I'd say they were overstepping their bounds...for a community, that's fine by me and, I believe, the Constitution.

Thoughts???