Students win breast-cancer bracelet case
Is the U.S. Supreme Court ready for boobie bracelets? That's the next possible step after an appeals court in Philadelphia on Monday sided with two Easton, Pa.-area girls who contended that their middle school violated their First Amendment rights by banning their "I ♥ boobies!" breast-cancer awareness bracelets in October 2010.
Is the U.S. Supreme Court ready for boobie bracelets?
That's the next possible step after an appeals court in Philadelphia on Monday sided with two Easton, Pa.-area girls who contended that their middle school violated their First Amendment rights by banning their "I ♥ boobies!" breast-cancer awareness bracelets in October 2010.
The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit was the latest victory for Kayla Martinez and Brianna Hawk, but not necessarily the end of their legal journey.
Their case clearly divided the court's 14 members. A lawyer for the Easton Area School District said he thought the issue was worthy of the highest court, but said he and district officials had not yet decided on an appeal.
In a 74-page opinion signed by eight of his fellow jurists, Judge D. Brooks Smith concluded the bracelets were "not plainly lewd" and carried an obvious social message, not a sexual one. The judges also were not swayed by school officials' contention that allowing the bracelets could open the door to students wearing more suggestive or borderline obscene apparel in the name of social causes.
"Just because letting in one idea might invite even more difficult judgment calls about other ideas cannot justify suppressing speech of genuine social value," Smith wrote.
Martinez and Hawk, he noted, wore the bracelets for weeks at Easton Area Middle School without being noticed, and did not cause any great disruption or herald a slippery slope of more racy or offensive gestures.
Still, they were suspended in 2010 after refusing orders to remove them on Breast Cancer Awareness Day.
Within weeks, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the school district on their behalf, and a federal judge later enjoined the Easton district from enforcing the ban. The district appealed, but before a three-judge panel issued its ruling, the entire slate of circuit judges decided to hear the case.
The three judges who had been prepared to rule were among the five dissenters Monday. In that opinion, written by Judge Thomas M. Hardiman, they concluded that the majority had misapplied Supreme Court precedents and mischaracterized the issue.
The question was not so much what the bracelets said but whether school officials used reasonable judgment when they concluded that such apparel was inappropriate and might lead to more egregiously sexual and disruptive displays, all in the name of advocating a cause.
"Running a school is more complicated now than ever before," Hardiman wrote. "In the close cases, such as this one, there is virtue in deferring to the reasonable judgments of those responsible for educating our nation's youth."
John Freund III, a lawyer for the Easton Area School District, said the decision was disappointing but not a surprise, given other recent decisions by the same circuit court.
Freund said he was unaware of similar challenges in the district since the case began, but said that even if they do emerge, the ruling offered no guidance to school officials on how to handle them.
"It's a complete morass," Freund said.
Mary Catherine Roper, a lawyer for the ACLU, said the opinion "recognizes that teens, like adults, must be free to speak and learn about important issues that affect them - even issues, like breast cancer, that make school administrators uncomfortable."
Roper said she was unsure whether there was enough at stake for the Supreme Court to consider the case.
Both girls are now in high school and were thrilled to hear about the ruling, their lawyer said. Both still wear their bracelets - "I believe they still do every day," Roper said.
