NC High School Changes Course in Christian T-Shirt Censorship Case
by Jim Brown
May 18, 2004
(AgapePress) - A North Carolina school district has agreed to apologize for engaging in unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination against three Christian students who wore shirts bearing biblical messages opposing homosexuality.
Watauga High School in Boone, North Carolina, recently suspended the students for wearing T-shirts bearing Bible verses and statements such as "Homosexuality is sin" and "Hell is real." But after the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy (CLP) threatened to sue over the censorship, the school board vowed to revise its clothing policy.
That policy bars items or content that is "offensive to any race, gender, or religion." Watauga principal Gary Childers told junior Mark Austin that the message on his shirt was offensive on the point of gender.
But Mike DePrimo, senior litigation counsel for the CLP, feels Principal Childers simply overreacted. "The clothing policy as it currently exists says that any clothing that is offensive to race, gender or religion cannot be worn. Of course that's over-broad and vague -- what does it mean to be offensive?" the attorney asks.
DePrimo says what the school really needs to do is "to be more specific as to what particular type of clothing is prohibited." He notes that CLP attorneys have offered to assist the school officials in drafting a new policy. But the attorney points out that the problem is by no means an isolated one. He says viewpoint discrimination against Christian students has become the norm in public schools all over the U.S.
"Christian morality is at odds right now with what they're teaching in the public schools. So I think whenever Christian students assert their sincerely held religious beliefs in opposition to what the schools are teaching, in many instances the schools try to either suppress or outright censor that speech," DePrimo says.
In addition to amending the language of its clothing policy, Watauga High School has agreed to apologize for suspending the three students and to wipe the suspensions from their academic records.
