A pair of lawsuits filed by high school and middle school students in Wisconsin allege their First Amendment rights have been violated by school officials who told them they could not wear shirts with pro-gun messages.
A total of three students in two separate Wisconsin school districts say they were told they could not wear clothing depicting pro-gun messages to class.
In the first case, a pair of sophomores at Kettle Moraine High School say principal Beth Kaminski told each student the shirts violated the school’s dress code and they must keep them covered with their jackets, the Milwaukee Sentinel Journal reported.
The shirts depicted advertisements for Wisconsin Carry, Inc. and other pro-gun slogans or sayings.
Students sue Wisconsin high school for banning T-shirts depicting guns https://t.co/4N8gsgLVUj pic.twitter.com/euZYHeccby
— ABC 7 Chicago (@ABC7Chicago) February 24, 2020
At Shattuck Middle School, a parent says her child was told he could not display pro-gun messages on his clothing.
“The District has addressed one shirt with inappropriate language,” the school said in a statement. “But has not required any students to change a shirt depicting a firearm and advocating gun ownership.”
The students’ case has ignited a statewide movement arguing the school is suppressing the First Amendment rights of the teenagers.
“They’re picking and choosing what they allow,” Kimberly Newhouse, a mother of one of the students at Kettle Moraine High School, told the Milwaukee Sentinel Journal. “That’s why the dress code is intentionally vague.”
“They’re protected speech,” John Monroe, a lawyer representing the students, told the Washington Post. “It’s absurd how wearing a shirt to school would have anything to do with school safety.”
The school district said it had “legitimate pedagogical concerns in preventing violence in its schools.”
“Providing a safe learning environment, physically and emotionally, for all students in KM’s schools is a top priority,” spokesman Zack Zupke said. “Wearing shirts with images of weapons can be respectfully regulated by the District.”
