First Amendment Doesn’t Quite Cover Students’ ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Shirts, Says Federal Court
from the take-it-far,-far-outside,-kids dept
It’s well-established that students still have Constitutional rights, even if some school administrators clearly believe otherwise. But they are limited, especially when on school grounds. There’s a lot of nuance in play. When those nuances are ignored, lawsuits get filed.
There’s plenty of nuance in this case, but not a lot of subtext. We all know what “Let’s Go Brandon” really means. The students in this case knew it too. And that collective knowledge — borne out of a TV broadcaster’s unfortunate attempt to recast the chants of “Fuck Joe Biden” that filled the air as he interviewed NASCAR driver Brandon Brown following his win in Talladega, Alabama — factors heavily into this decision [PDF] issued by a Michigan federal court. (h/t Volokh Conspiracy)
A few months after this poor reporter turned “Let’s Go Brandon” into shorthand for “Fuck Joe Biden,” two students (X.A. and D.A.) were given “Let’s Go Brandon” shirts by their mother as gifts. They both wore these shirts to school. They were both told to remove them. They both complied. In D.A.’s case, he wore another shirt under his “Let’s Go Brandon” sweatshirt with the same phrase on it, resulting in him being sent to the school social worker to get a more acceptable shirt to wear.
Both students were well-aware of the double meaning. Both admitted as much when deposed. Their parents knew what the phrase meant as well. So did the teachers and administrators who ordered the students to remove their shirts. However, the family (all of which are plaintiffs) argued the shirts were political speech, and even if they weren’t, at face value they contained no words that violated school policies against profanity.
The court says this doesn’t matter as much as the plaintiffs want it to. Schools are free to ban profanity from students’ clothing, even when the printed words aren’t actually profanities themselves. It helpfully serves up a selection of similar incidents either the court or the school’s employees had encountered in the past.
If schools can prohibit students from wearing apparel that contains profanity, schools can also prohibit students from wearing apparel that can reasonably be interpreted as profane. Removing a few letters from the profane word or replacing letters with symbols would not render the message acceptable in a school setting. School administrators could prohibit a shirt that reads “F#%* Joe Biden.” School officials have restricted student from wearing shirts that use homophones for profane words. See, e.g., Mercer v. Harr, No. Civ. A. H-04-3454, 2005 WL 1828581 (S.D. Tex. Aug. 2, 2005) (granting summary judgment in favor of the middle school when the school forbid a student from wearing a shirt that read “Somebody Went to HOOVER DAM And All I Got Was This ‘DAM’ Shirt.”). Defendant Bradford recalled speaking to one student who was wearing a hat that said “Fet’s Luck”. She thought the hat was inappropriate for school because rearranging the first letters of the two words resulted in a lewd message. Defendant Buikema testified that he asked a student to change out of a hoodie that displayed the words “Uranus Liquor” because the message was lewd. School officials could likely prohibit students from wearing concert shirts from the music duo LMFAO (Laughing My F***ing A** Off) or apparel displaying “AITA?” (Am I the A**hole?).
Context matters. There’s plenty of it here. No one on either side of this litigation was confused about the real meaning of this phrase. Pretending these three words only mean literally what they say isn’t a credible argument, especially when the plaintiffs themselves have already admitted otherwise.
The phrase means something other than the dictionary definition of the three words. D.A. and X.A. are not enthusiastic supporters of someone named Brandon. Albeit using different words, Let’s Go Brandon, means F*** Joe Biden, a personal insult containing a swear word. Defendants both interpreted the phrase as having a profane meaning. Both D.A. and X.A. thought the phrase was funny because it meant a profanity. When students use language in a school setting that can reasonably be interpreted as inappropriate, courts have permitted schools to discourage students from using that language.
The First Amendment covers some speech by students. It does not, however, cover the shirts that were only allowed to cover the plaintiffs for part of their school day.
In school settings, profanity does not enjoy First Amendment protection. Directing profanity toward a political figure does not transform the utterance to protected speech. Indisputably, the phrase Let’s Go Brandon originated as a profane personal insult directed at President Joe Biden. When Plaintiffs wore sweatshirts bearing the phrase to their middle school, school officials reasonably interpreted the phrase as having a profane meaning. The school officials then enforced the dress code and had Plaintiffs change their attire. The school’s actions did not violate Plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights.
And there it is. Students will either have to deploy phrases administrators haven’t figured out yet or transform other innocuous words into incognito profanities if they want to get away with swearing in school. The school can still ban “Let’s Go Brandon” from its campus without violating the Constitution… or at least until someone brings a better case than this to the same judicial circuit.
Filed Under: 1st amendment, free speech, michigan, student speech, tri county middle school
Comments on “First Amendment Doesn’t Quite Cover Students’ ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Shirts, Says Federal Court”
Ok sure, let’s pretend we all do. I’d never heard of this before. At least you explained it well enough.
Re:
You must have been really mad about Everybody Loves Raymond.
Re: Re:
OK, now i don’t know what’s going on, even though i remember “Let’s Go Brandon”.
Overall, trying to stop middle school students from cursing and cracking dirty jokes is futile. That said, I can at least understand wanting to restrict their attire with regards to such matters. I see it as akin to the difference between listening to your preferred music through headphones and using a boombox to impose your tastes in music on everyone nearby.
Of course the First Ammendment doesn’t cover shirts. That would be censorship.
There’s an old Soviet joke. A man is passing out flyers in Red Square and the KGB rushes out to arrest him. However, the flyers turn out to be blank.
“How can you arrest me?” The man asks, “The papers are blank!”
“Don’t play stupid!” Says the KGB officer, “We all know what you were trying to say!”
It is plainly censorship. That it the message is cast in favor of a terrible person doesn’t make it acceptable. There is no obscenity in “Let’s Go Brandon” and pretending that there is, in fact, the entire joke. I wonder how far schools would be willing to take this “we all know what you really mean” logic. Would blank t-shirts without any text at all be considered a bridge too far?
Re: However, the flyers turn out to be blank
Ummmmm …. that actually happened – no joke.
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It’s like you didn’t read the article or something. Nobody was pretending that the words “Let’s Go Brandon” were profane themselves, but instead a reference to a profane statement.
Re: Re:
A minor quibble, it isn’t a reference to a profane statement – it’s a euphemism for it and if someone have to use euphemisms in their “political speech” instead of the actual language we can safely assume their political speech is garbage to begin with.
Re: Re: Re:
A euphemism is a form of reference…
Re: Re: Re:2
It’s actually a substitution of an expression and not a reference. If it was a reference, it would perhaps look like this: “Kelli Stavast made everyone forget that Brandon Brown won”
Re: Re: Re:3
You’re splitting hairs. It was specifically intended as a reference, and it was perceived as a reference. I don’t actually care (since it just makes them look dumb, anyways), but pretending it isn’t in some way a reference to a phrase that contains profanity is being deliberately obtuse.
Re: Re: Re:4
I’m not splitting hairs. It may have started as a reference to what Kelli said in response to the public chanting but it quickly became an euphemism since it is specifically used instead of saying “Fuck Joe Biden”.
Do you really believe anyone who use the phrase for its sentiment is actually referencing what was chanted or do they just use it to express a sentiment in other words?
Re: Re: Re:3
Two things can be true. It was a substitution of an expression that referenced the expression. A euphemism is a form of a reference, as is a metaphor, a simile, and many other types of speech. Reference is a greater category that can include various specific methods of reference.
Re: Re: Re:4
Sure, but do you seriously think anyone who speaks that phrase uses it as a reference to what what was said at Talladega or are they just using it as an euphemism to express a sentiment?
Intent and context matter.
Re: Re: Re:5
A euphemism or a substitution must refer to something in the least by implication or else it isn’t a euphemism or a substitution.
But you’re pivoting here. You said earlier it was a euphemism for the profane statement and now you’re trying to say that it possibly wasn’t. You can’t have it both ways.
Re: Re: Re:6
I don’t know how you can come to that conclusion based on what I said since you didn’t actually explain your reasoning.
Re: Re: Re:7
You said: “Do you really believe anyone who use the phrase for its sentiment is actually referencing what was chanted or do they just use it to express a sentiment in other words?”
If they use the phrase for its sentiment, then they are necessarily referencing the chant that was the origin. They didn’t come up with the phrase on their own out of context. They are referencing what came before. So if you’re going to contend that they’re not referencing the chant, then you’re saying that they’re not uttering a euphemism or substitution (which is what you had claimed).
You certainly could speculate that some of them aren’t aware of the original context, but that would only make them ignorant of the reference they’re making. That doesn’t mean they’re not making the reference.
Sometimes, I make references to shows I’ve never seen by repeating catchphrases I’ve heard from other people. They’re still references.
Re: Re: Re:8
That does not follow. The point I think he’s making is that they say “Let’s go Brandon” instead of “F** Joe Biden” which makes it an euphemism. But for anyone to understand where it came from it must be explained as a reference to the event which spawned the expression, because it isn’t a reference until someone has explained why that is and are then subsequently used as a euphemism when needed.
This is what the judge in this case said about the phrase: Indisputably, the phrase Let’s Go Brandon originated as a profane personal insult directed at President Joe Biden. When Plaintiffs wore sweatshirts bearing the phrase to their middle school, school officials reasonably interpreted the phrase as having a profane meaning. If it is a reference it can’t be profane but if it’s a euphemism it’s profane which seems how the judge reasoned. And a reference can become a euphemism when the primary use isn’t as a reference anymore and is used as a substitution for the original “obscene” language.
So your usage of these catchphrases is always to reference the shows? Or do you perhaps use it as a substitute to describe a situation, outcome or something else?
In the end, it is how something is used that determines what it means and what it is because that’s how language works, it evolves and changes with use.
Re: Re: Re:
ref·er·ence
noun
1.
the action of mentioning or alluding to something.
eu·phe·mism
noun
a mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing.
0/10 on your pedantry.
Re: Re: Re:2
So tell me, what does “Let’s go Brandon” reference to in a way that makes sense for someone who don’t know the underlaying context?
Just look at the very first post by Phoenix, if you told him that “Let’s go Brandon” is a reference to “Fuck Joe Biden” you haven’t given him enough information to form an opinion on why it is relevant or for him to place it in any kind of context. If you instead tell him it is a euphemism he would understand the basic context for the phrase.
In both cases the underlaying context is missing, but referring to it as a euphemism give the phrase a basic context which people can understand and why it’s used, and as Phoenix demonstrated – not everyone knows the origin of the phrase and why it’s relevant.
Re: Re: Re:3
Who the fuck doesn’t know the context at this point? Conservatives have been chanting it for nigh on 4 years. People have literally have opened entire stores dedicated to the phrase. These kids knew exactly what it represents and copped to that. Pleading personal ignorance doesn’t change that.
Re: Re: Re:3
It’s references to the time a crowd was yelling “Fuck Joe Biden” and a reporter claimed they were saying “Let’s go Brandon”.
But at no point in time does your argument here bring any value at all.
Re: Re: Re:4
Every accusation a very telling confession.
Re: Re: Re:4
You didn’t actually answer his question, you explained the context of the reference which wasn’t what he was asking for.
Do you understand why he asked the way he did? Think!
Re: Re: Re:2
You forgot the first digit in “10/10”.
Re: Re:
So, any statement, any slogan that can be turned into a vulgarity (or otherwise “disruptive” speech) can be barred?
I guess I’d better not wear my shirt that has Winnie the Poo on one half, Gollum on the other half, and the legend “success in foreign diplomacy” across the bottom?
Re: Re: Re:
This isn’t a case about general free speech, but specifically in the context of a school. Schools have been able to restrict student expression in cases where it poses a disruption to learning, though students have been otherwise ruled to retain their 1st Amendment rights in general.
For instance, a minor has the 1st Amendment right to say “fuck” but can also be punished for saying “fuck” at school and it’s not considered a 1st Amendment violation by the school administrators.
Re: Re: Re:
You have it backwards, any statement or slogan that is obscene, vulgar, racist etc can be turned into an “innocent” euphemism in an effort to evade rules in a specific venue, like a school in this instance.
The point you are missing here is that political statements can be satirical and when seen by the intended target(s) they perceive it as obscene or vulgar even though it doesn’t consist of any obscene or vulgar language or euphemisms for such. It may be entirely different when the political statement/satire actually implies obscene/vulgar acts or language, although such things may be very contextual for a given situation.
If you plan to wear apparel that satirize thin-skinned people in power, I’d recommend you to avoid placing yourself into their sphere of influence which has always been true unless you really want to use yourself as a political statement.
Re: Re: Re:2
Wait wait wait. Are you implying that Joe Biden is a “thin-skinned person in power” and that students should avoid antagonizing him within his “sphere of influence” (i.e. public schools)? I really hope that’s not the argument you are trying to make there.
Re: Re: Re:3
Get the context: Tee with Pooh and Gollum.
Re: Re: Re:3
i don’t think so, but if i twist my head around to a dangerous extent, i can see where you’re coming from.
Re: Re: Re:
In a school setting, specifically? Yes, so long as the interpretation is reasonable. Like it or not, that has been the law for quite some time.
Though, really, it’s more that any statement or slogan that has been transformed from a vulgarity to something not quite as blatantly vulgar can be barred, so long as the connection is still reasonable to make. It’s saying that you can’t get around the rule quite that easily. Important to this case is that the students knew and intended it to be interpreted as the school did.
Not in a school, maybe. Outside of a school? Go nuts.
Though, honestly, I have no idea what that’s even referring to, so if it’s not perceived as such, it wouldn’t be banned.
Re: Re: Re:
Not just if it “can” be, but if it’s “reasonably interpreted” that way. And only specifically in schools.
The type of ‘disruption’ matters. Tinker for instance, explicitly was a case about black armbands protesting the Vietnam war.
It’d probably depend on whether that was likely to cause disruption. As political speech, it’d likely get relatively higher protection, as well.
Re: Re: Re:
No. Read the article, it’s all explained in detail so you don’t have to ask ignorant questions.
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No one is saying it isn’t censorship.
No, what makes it acceptable is that we don’t allow profanity on student’s clothing, which means censoring it. Hence the quote
In school settings, profanity does not enjoy First Amendment protection.
If people plainly understood what it stood for? Yes. There’s nothing magical about a cuss word or whatever. Although it would come down to “reasonably interpreted”. Which in this case, is very clear.
Re: Re:
You might want to take a second look at what you just wrote, and reconsider.
Even if “people plainly understood what [a T-shirt without decoration] stood for”, you are advocating banning undecorated clothing based on expectations.
Sometimes, a blank T-shirt is just a blank T-shirt. And sometimes a pipe is not a pipe.
Re: Re: Re:
That is what reasonable interpretation means, yes.
It’s not any different than how we’d deal with something very abstract like 1488 or whatever, either.
Yes. And sometimes it’s not. And sometimes it’s even not clear which category it is. Hence the ‘reasonably interpreted’ standard.
That’s all just a part of normal human communication. It’s filled with euphemisms, allegories or other indirect/nonliteral forms of communication. That’s just how language works, and we have to deal with that. There’s nothing about the law that says we have to play dumb and be hyperliteralist about it, when we as human beings are perfectly able to communicate/parse very abstract language cues.
And a big advantage comes, that in order for something to be widely understood, it does have to be pretty reasonable to interpret. You only really run into issues with ‘secret’ phrases (but the flipside is, it’s effectiveness as a broader message is strongly limited if you do that). So it tends to be self regulating.
It’s kind of a double-edged sword. If people regularly wear blank t-shirts, it can’t easily be co-opted for any sort of broad message. At best it can be an in group joke.
Re: Re: Re:
The expectations of both the person wearing the shirt and the school.
This isn’t one of those scenarios. We’re specifically talking about a scenario where that isn’t the case.
Re: what's old is new
There is Covid-era reality in Red China. Because words critical of government are not permitted, people posted blank pieces of paper. Everyone knew what they meant, yes, but prosecution was marginally more difficult.
So hard disagree. This speech is political first and profanity second. The argument you and the school are making here is that a politician could change their legal name to horse fucker, or state that gang raping women is okay and it’s okay to censor any student attempt to reference any of that because it contains or references profanity.
Re:
This speech is political first and profanity second.
Horse shit. Maybe profanity around children is commonplace in the trailer park, but if they can’t read anything about sexuality in the library, allowing them to wear the equivalent of ‘Fuck’ on their shirt seems a bit fucking stupid doesn’t it?
What if other students start asking what ‘fuck’ means?
Think of those goddamned children, for fuck’s sake!
Re: Re:
So then all politicians can curse and mention sex to censor kids?
Re: Re: Re:
Why would they want to?
“Kids broadcasting their political opinions on their t-shirts while in school” isn’t the kind of criticism that politicians would bother concerning themselves with.
Re: Re: Re:
So then all politicians can curse and mention sex to censor kids?
Anyone can curse and mention sex without giving anything resembling a shit about someone else’s kids. Try doing it in a school hallway and someone’s going to haul you off, while shoving your ‘but muh freeze peach’ straight up your ass.
Your problem should be why the ‘parents’ are so obtuse to think this stunt was a good idea, not to mention using their kids to do so.
Re: Re: Re:2
You idiots really aren’t thinking of the repercussions of holding that the appropriateness of speech ranks higher than the purpose.
Unpopular opinions? Just make them 18+ and you can censor them from 20% of the population!
Between the internet age laws, book bans and other nonsense there is no way censoring political speech based on age appropriateness is a good path to go down.
Re: Re: Re:3 Oh good, I get to check that one off on the bingo card...
Unpopular opinions? Just make them 18+ and you can censor them from 20% of the population!
And which ‘unpopular opinion’/’political speech’ is being censored here again?
Re: Re: Re:4
“And which ‘unpopular opinion’/’political speech’ is being censored here again?”
Ohhhhh, you know which ones ….
Re: Re: Re:3
You idiots really aren’t thinking of the repercussions of holding that the appropriateness of speech ranks higher than the purpose.
It’s been thought through, you’re just too focused on being an asshole because you can, instead of whether you should.
For example, I’d love to be able to say ‘fuck your asshole god’ in a church full of sheep because freeze peach. Is that the kind of ‘purpose’ you’re talking about?
Re: Re: Re:4
It’s not based on age. The students can wear the shirts outside of school. It’s context- and location-specific.
Should a kid be able to scream in class non-stop just because children have the free speech right to scream? Where does one student’s right to free speech end and another student’s right to an undisrupted education begin?
Re: Re: Re:5
Woops, wrong comment.
Re: Re: Re:6
Nevertheless a good point.
Re: Re: Re:3
Because this is specific to students’ speech in a school setting. It doesn’t apply to children’s speech outside of school, nor to adults’ speech at all. Students at school have fewer protections for free speech. This principle does not apply outside of these specific circumstances.
This isn’t about age-appropriateness. This is about maintaining order in a school setting. And it’s very specifically the students’ speech being censored here, not just anyone’s, and only at school. This isn’t about books kept in school libraries or speech being accessed by children or any speech outside of schools.
Except that internet age restrictions and book bans don’t fall under the exceptions relevant here. Those other situations don’t involve students’ speech in a school setting but minors’ access to speech, the former on the internet (anywhere) and the latter in libraries. This exception to the 1A only applies to the speech of students, not merely accessible for students, and only at school or under school supervision.
Re: Re: Re:3
Again, if you dumb fucks would read the article you’d know that nothing has changed due to this ruling.
There will be no ‘repercussions”.
Things will continue as they have now for a long time.
There is nothing inherently special about saying “Fuck Joe Biden” but in weird way.
Re: Re:
I don’t know. Remember when wearing ‘FCUK’ sweatshirts were all the rage with kids?
Re:
The court would look at this statement, and stop 8 words in, say (rightly), “Lol that doesn’t matter,” and tell you to go home.
It’s pathetic that the parents would use middle-school-aged children to try and capitalize on what they were led to believe was a slam-dunk freeze peach lawsuit.
It’s not an ‘accomplishment’ when kids turn out to be assholes like their parents. I predict the next lesson they’ll teach is how unfair it is that they lost the lawsuit to get the ‘victim complex’ piece of the puzzle off to a solid start.
Are public schools in the US allowed, legally, to enforce dress code upon the staff and students?
Re:
Yes.
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Yes, although there are limitations (see Tinker v Des Moines and similar cases)
and we all know what “Jesus Saves!” means…..
Re:
Jesus Saves, everyone else rolls a Dex Save, obviously!
Limiting principle?
So what’s the limiting principle here? Profanity being disallowed I can understand. But a reference to profanity that is not, itself, profanity can now be disallowed? How about references to those references? Are those disallowable?
Could a student be told to change or cover up their shirt if it said ‘I support the message banned in the wrongly decided “D.A. v. Tri County Area Schools”‘? Because that’s a reference to the court case about the reference to the profanity. Or is going through court enough to sanitize the phrase? Because if a student looks it up they’re back to finding out about the profanity.
It seems like this ruling would also allow a school to disallow a shirt that said “Carlin’s Seven Dirty Words”. Extending the definition of “profanity” to include non-profane references to profanity seems like a bad idea.
Re: Limits?
Limits were spelled out in the decision. Replacing text to convay the same meaning does not bypass the schools ability to limit speach when dealing with things that are disruptive to the learning process. Shirts with “F#@! Joe Biden” are not allowed, As such shirts with something that everyone agrees means the same thing reguardless of the words used are not allowed.
All the court is saying is your not allowed to play the subsutituion game when you, and everyone around you knows the meaning of the subsutition.
The same thing would happen if “I like Pickles” was ment to convay the person waring the shirt was gay. As long as the convayed message is innappropoate in the eyes of the school administration the result is the same if said message is innapproporate.
Re: Re:
So how about a shirt that says “Go Brandon” on it? Is that offensive? Note that the supposedly euphemistic “Let’s” has been omitted. Or is the absence of text able to stand in for school disrupting curse words still?
Re: Re: Re:
Maybe you should fuck around and find out – or use your children as proxy fuck-arounders, like the good folks in the above case chose to do?
Re:
So what’s the limiting principle here?
Perhaps the assholes leading the ‘library purge’ of books can explain it to you.
Re: Re:
My question always is, if you believe removing LGBTQIAP+ books is bad, then we should bring the Bible back to schools as well, right?
Re: Re: Re:
Do you feel the same way about the Quran, the Tanakh and Torah, the Pali Canon, and the Star Wars trilogies?
Comparative religion classes are fine. Religious education provided by the government, less so. (Note that Religious education through private schools has been fine for a very, very long time.)
If you don’t see the difference between teaching about religions, and teaching a religion, you should do a bit more investigation.
Re: Re: Re:2
eh… ps: having a copy (or several) of the Bible, or the other works mentioned, in the school library is every bit as OK as having the LGBTQIAP+ books there, and for the same reason.
Re: Re: Re:
then we should bring the Bible back to schools as well, right?
Why?
So that kids can learn that slaves should submit to their masters? Or what crimes deserve being stoned to death for? That children should need to pay for the sins of their parents?
The creation story, which you can only hope kids won’t notice that Adam & Eve had 2 sons? Which of the two sons bore children, and was a woman was involved? I’d think something that promotes parent-child relations of that sort would be exactly the thing you’d want to keep away from children. It implies that either one of the sons was a motherfucker (literally), or that there was another gender somewhere between man & woman who was able to shit out a kid.
Or perhaps my favorite quote, which illustrates what a real piece of shit the ‘god’ of the bible is:
Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately. But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves. Numbers 31:17-18
So much ‘pro-life’ to digest there.
The bible should’ve been the first book pulled out of libraries, and parents should be prosecuted for exposing their children to such profane materials. But that would require critical thinking, and if there’s one thing bible-pushers need to suppress is people actually reading the book they use to define their ‘morals.’
Glad you asked?
Re: Re: Re:
Bibles are in schools, you chuckle fuck. Usually, they are somehow exempt from all of the book ban so they can remain when you goose stepping, book burning, fascists get control.
Re: Re: Re:
No.
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The decision talked about it, but it goes back to tests established in Morse (whether something is ‘reasonably interpreted’) and Tinker (whether it’s disruptive)
If it’s “reasonably interpreted” as having a profane meaning, then yes. To quote: Words constitute profanity because of the meaning conveyed, not because of the specific letters used to form the word..
One of the examples given in the ruling is Boroff, which was about Marilyn Manson t-shirts. That ban was upheld.
Re:
No. Not now. It’s been this way for a while now. Which is why the kids, the parents and their lawyer are morons. The outcome was clear from day 1.
Re:
As someone else pointed out further up, what was banned was a euphemism, not a reference.
Why would they want to?
“Kids broadcasting their political opinions on their t-shirts while in school” isn’t the kind of criticism that politicians would bother concerning themselves with.
I’m curious if they came up with this on the spot to disallow speech they disagreed with, or if the school has a history of enforcement regarding students saying and wearing clothes that include “Heck”, “Frick”, “Crap”, “Gosh”, and so on and so forth.
Re:
You can add “Smeg” and “Frell” to your list.
Perhaps even an anthropomorphic cricket wearing a conical red hat with fluffy white trim.
Re:
No you’re not, since it’s clear as day that this isn’t a new policy.
'My shirt clearly says Yuck Fou, You Fother Mucker, so it's not against the rules!'
Gotta admit as much as it pained me to do so at first I was on the side of the losers wearing the shirts, but after reading the article I find myself siding with the school here.
If you wouldn’t be allowed to wear a shirt that said ‘Fuck [Insert name here]’ then wearing a shirt that everyone knows is just that put another way would seem to clearly fall under the same prohibition, as to read it otherwise would be to effectively make the rule meaningless.
Re:
See the other examples raised in this thread.
When you permit euphemism to be censored, you open the door to all kinds of language crimes.
Your shirt saying “Goodbye, Felicia” may be just fine today but banned tomorrow because popular culture decides to give your words a different meaning than when they were printed.
Re: Re:
When you permit euphemism to be censored, you open the door to all kinds of language crimes.
When you permit children to dictate what is acceptable without considering the context that they’re children, you open the door to dickhead parents exploiting their children in furtherance of their own stupidity.
Just like what we’ve got here. If you’re teaching your kids that saying ‘Fuck [Insert Perceived Enemy Here]’ is acceptable, I’d have thought the better path would’ve been calling CPS on the parents.
Re: Re: Sorry to break it to you but I'm not as stupid as that reporter
Just to clarify your position, do you think that schools should be allowed to ban profanity on clothing?
If a student came into school wearing a ‘Fuck Joe Biden’ shirt, would you be for or against the school being able to tell the student that they’re not allowed to wear that and to change it for something without profanity on it?
Re: Re: Re:
But the students didn’t have shirts that said “Fuck Joe Biden” or “F#$* Joe Biden” or “F— Joe Biden” or even “—- Joe Biden”. They had shirts that said “Let’s Go Brandon”, which shares no words and only a single leading letter prohibited phrase (and notably not a single F, U, C, or K). It’s worth pointing out that no particular word in the phrase is by itself objectionable. “Let’s Go” and “Go Brandon” are, by themselves, innocuous and meaningless. Only when all three are combined does the entire phrase assume an alternative meaning. The word “fuck” isn’t being obscured here, the overall statement is. That’s where this censorship attempt is fatally flawed.
Re: Re: Re:2
Again, I’m not as stupid as the reporter that kicked this whole thing off. The entire point of ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ is to say ‘Fuck Joe Biden’ without saying it directly. No one other than a sucker of a reporter is hearing that phrase and thinking that the speaker must really be a fan of someone named Brandon.
If a school had a ‘no self-harm messages’ rule would you likewise argue that a student wearing a ‘Go fellate a shotgun’ shirt isn’t a violation because it doesn’t specifically tell the reader to kill themself given the gun might not be loaded, or the shirt isn’t telling them to pull the trigger after it’s in their mouth?
Re: Re: Re:2
You are applying exactly the same reasoning as people who try to evade rules by splitting an action up into tiny separate parts that by themselves are allowed while ignoring that it is the whole and the intent that counts.
“I’m not walking, I’m moving each foot in an even rhythm”
“I’m not talking, I’m stringing different sounds together interspaced with silence”
“I’m not driving, I’m traveling”
“I’m not swearing, I’m just quoting words from a dictionary”
Re: Re: Re:2
Except there is no real difference here. It’s not about the word but the intended and reasonably perceived meaning.
Re: Re: Re:2
Is the school trying to enforce it outside of the school, before and after school hours?
If yes, it is censorship and should be rightly criticized.
If no…
Stop trying to rules lawyer your fucking way out of it.
And in this particular case, the answer is…
NO, THE SCHOOL WAS NOT TRYING TO CENSOR THE OFFENDERS OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL AND SCHOOL HOURS.
Re: Re: Re:2
Goddammit man, read the article. Everyone one involved agrees that “Let’s Go Brandon” means “Fuck Joe Biden” so it was exactly like your examples.
You’d look a lot smarter if you didn’t speculate on things that the judge, defendant, and plaintiffs all agree on and state openly.
Re: Re: Re:3 Please Go Brandon Yourself
No. I do not recognize that “Let’s go Brandon” means what you say it means.
Let’s go Brandon tells Brandon it’s time to go. This and nothing else.
Are you a 1984 facist that tries to push novlang upon us ?
You think we are going to let you change words or sentences meaning the way you want ?
One of us will have to die before that happens. And I’m betting you will die quickly.
Re: Re: Re:4
Your denial of the basic fact that words and phrases can have multiple meanings doesn’t have any effect on the reality that the rest of us can perceive.
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None of which help your case.
Also, strictly speaking, yours is only the second comment in this thread, so there aren’t any other examples raised in this thread. There are other examples raised in other threads on this page, but not in this thread.
Yeah, to other euphemisms. I don’t have a problem with that given that the censorship is limited only to students and only while at school or a school-run activity under school supervision.
That’s missing the fact that we’re discussing a situation where it was known and intended to be a euphemism by the students, not a situation where the problematic meaning was unintended and unknown. It also ignores that this only applies to speech made by the students and only in school settings, nowhere else and from nobody else.
In a perfectly parallel situation, I do not have a problem with that. At least it’s better than a straight-up mandatory uniform, where you can’t have any speech or even any real diversity on your clothes at all, and that is absolutely fine under the Constitution.
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Sure, and if it is banned in school tomorrow, how about you don’t wear that fucking shirt to school instead of being an asshole?
Oh wait, you’re already advocating for the asshole position of the “I’m not touching you, is this bothering you?” child in the back seat of the car.
Once again, some jerk ruins it for everybody.
Now the school district will change their dress code to disallow any words/symbols upon clothing. It is not out of the realm of possibilities, I remember a school district was in the news after they restricted gang colors.
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Fuck Joe Biden (and Komrade Kamala)!
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What are you, 5? Or just stupid?
How did this even reach a court? Schools have never allowed students or staff the full protection of the 1st amendment.
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The student filed suit.
Lets hope some parent doesn’t bring their kid a t shirt back from “Uranus Fudge Factory”.
Add in a comma to change the meaning of the phrase, however… Like so: “Let’s Go, Brandon”.
[censored]
Hit the schools where it hurts : money. Send them to courts for violating the first amendment. One attack per student, so they have to defend themselves one by one, court by court.
Contact every sponsor of that school. Every company or anything they have ties with. Give them the “sleeping giants” treatment.
Money and loss of it is very, very effective in the USA.
Shove the first up their [censored]
The russian fascists dreamed of it, the United States of America made it real.