The Supreme Court declined to review a First Amendment challenge on Monday, allowing a lower court decision to stand. The ruling preserves authority for school districts to regulate student attire that contains vulgar or offensive language.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces existing legal precedents regarding student speech in educational settings. While the high court has historically protected student expression, it has also affirmed that schools may restrict language deemed disruptive or inappropriate. This outcome provides clarity for administrators managing dress codes and behavioral standards across public school systems.
What Happened
The legal dispute originated in 2022 at Tri County Middle School in Michigan. Two brothers, one in eighth grade and the other in sixth grade, wore sweatshirts printed with the phrase “Let’s Go Brandon.” The slogan emerged from a 2021 NASCAR event involving driver Brandon Brown and has since been widely interpreted as a coded reference to a vulgar expletive directed at then-President Joe Biden.
School officials, including a teacher and an assistant principal, ordered the students to remove the garments. The family filed a lawsuit in 2023, alleging violations of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. A divided panel of the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the school district. Supreme Court lawyer Lisa Blatt represented the district, while the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression represented the family.
The school district’s legal brief argued that the phrase constituted vulgar speech, which schools are permitted to prohibit under a 1986 Supreme Court precedent. The brief also cited other examples of potentially disruptive apparel, including a shirt depicting Donald Trump with cats and text referencing the 2005 Access Hollywood tape, as well as the number 69, which can denote a sexual position.
By The Numbers
- 2022: Year the students wore the sweatshirts to school.
- 2023: Year the family filed the constitutional lawsuit.
- 1986: Year the Supreme Court established that schools may ban vulgar language.
- Sixth Circuit: The appeals court that upheld the school district’s enforcement of its dress code.
- 8-1: Vote count in a separate case five years ago favoring a student regarding off-campus speech.
Zoom Out
The Supreme Court has long balanced student free speech rights against the need for order in schools. Nearly six decades after Tinker v. Des Moines, which affirmed that students retain First Amendment rights, the high court has carved out exceptions for lewd or offensive expression. Five years ago, an 8-1 majority ruled in favor of a former high school cheerleader concerning off-campus speech, distinguishing between private expression and on-campus conduct.
The current case involved on-campus attire, where schools traditionally hold broader regulatory power. The decision affects approximately 50 million public school children nationwide, maintaining the status quo that allows educators to enforce standards of decency without facing constitutional challenges for every instance of coded political speech.
What’s Next
The Sixth Circuit’s ruling remains binding precedent in Michigan and serves as persuasive authority for other federal circuits. No further Supreme Court action is expected on this matter, leaving school districts with continued discretion to manage student expression that violates community standards or disrupts the educational environment.
In separate proceedings on Monday, the Supreme Court also rejected an appeal from Dylann Roof. Roof was convicted on nine counts of racially motivated hate crimes resulting in death after killing nine people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. He received a death sentence two years after the massacre and is currently on federal death row in Indiana. Roof argued that U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel should have recused himself. The high court had previously declined to hear an earlier appeal from Roof in 2022.
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