School Ban on Marine Corps T-Shirt Unconstitutional, Say Federal Judge
by Jim Brown and Jody Brown
March 17, 2005
(AgapePress) - A federal judge has ruled that an Indiana high school student has a constitutional right to wear a "Marine Corps Creed" T-shirt to school.Elmhurst High School in Fort Wayne had banned Nelson Griggs from wearing a T-shirt bearing the likeness of an M-16 rifle and a portion of a work entitled "My Rifle," also known as the "Marine Corps Creed." The words of that creed are widely accepted and quoted in the American military, law enforcement, and rifle sports communities as a statement of personal responsibility and rifle safety. But school district officials said the T-shirt violated the school's prohibition on "symbols of violence." Now U.S. District Judge Roger Cosbey has ruled the Marine T-shirt ban was unconstitutional.
In his ruling, Judge Cosbey commended district officials for their commitment, under "undeniable pressure," to prevent student violence. "Yet the discretion afforded to administrators to censor student speech cannot be limitless," he wrote.
Griggs' attorney, John Whitehead with The Rutherford Institute, says the decision sends a strong message to public school administrators.
"Schools have a legitimate concern about violence in the schools," he acknowledges, "but as we've seen at The Rutherford Institute, with the cases we've handled on zero-tolerance policies -- and we've handled quite a few -- schools totally over-react. They don't use discretion."
Whitehead says he is hopeful schools will understand they need to "temper" their zero-tolerance policies so they are not violating the First Amendment rights of students to express themselves through the clothing they wear. And the attorney suggests that instead of banning Griggs' apparel, the school should have welcomed his patriotism.
"This is the type of activity I would think that schools would want to encourage today, with so much dissent and disagreement with what's happening over in the Middle East," Whitehead offers. "But here you have someone who genuinely cares for our fighting men -- and I think this is something that schools should support."
Ironically, notes Whitehead, when Griggs -- then a sophomore -- served in-school suspension during the debacle in 2003, he was placed in a room where a Marine Corps recruiting poster was hanging. The poster depicted a Marine holding an M-16 rifle identical to that shown on Griggs' T-shirt.
Whitehead predicts that Griggs, who is a strong supporter of the U.S. military, will no doubt be seen wearing the Marine Corps T-shirt to school soon. The student, who filed suit last year, is now in his senior year at Elmhurst High.
