School Backs Down, Allows Student's Pro-Life Message on Clothing
by Jim Brown
June 16, 2004
(AgapePress) - A Virginia high school has agreed to no longer bar a Christian student from wearing a pro-life sweatshirt to school.The dramatic about-face comes after the Thomas More Law Center threatened to sue Osbourn Park High School in Manassas on behalf of senior Heather Holbrook, whose sweatshirt bore the words: "Abortion is homicide. You will not silence my message. You will not mock my God. You will stop killing my generation. Rock for Life."
At first, Holbrook's assistant principal said the shirt displayed a political message the school did not want to promote. Later, she told Holbrook's mother that it expressed a political message, the same as a Confederate flag. And finally, in a letter to Holbrook's family, she claimed the pro-life message was "offensive."
Richard Thompson, chief counsel for the Thomas More Law Center, says the type of discrimination the senior encountered has become all too common in schools. "It's generally the kid who has the Christian point of view who the school tries to silence," he says.
The attorney says students who wear clothing that bears morally questionable messages are typically given a pass. "The kid who shows up with the shirt that has the Playboy bunny logo on it or ... a marijuana leaf on it [is] never told to take the shirt off and turn it inside-out," Thompson notes. "But a kid shows up with a Christian or pro-life message? They're usually the ones who are told [they] can't wear that."
Thompson contends that conservative viewpoints are often censored in public schools -- and that schools will come up with every excuse they can think of to tell students they cannot wear clothing with certain messages.
"I've heard everything from school administrators [saying] that it's a religious message -- 'We don't want kids advocating religious messages' -- to it's profanity, to it's offensive, to 'we just don't like it type of a response.'" All of those excuses, Thompson says, "don't carry water legally."
Thompson explains that students are not required to express only those messages that the school approves -- and he applauds the Holbrook family for having the courage to stand up to the school and its attempt to silence their daughter's pro-life message.
