Cancer Awareness Slogan Too Risque For Some Schools

"I Love Boobies."

That’s the breast-cancer awareness slogan adopted by the California non-profit, Keep a Breast Foundation, and banned from schools in California, Florida, South Dakota and Wisconsin.  Kids who've worn t-shirts and bracelets bearing the slogan have been told to remove them or turn them inside-out during class, typically because the slogan is perceived to violate dress code policies that prohibit sexually suggestive language.

Perhaps it’s a close call, but surely there’s a First Amendment concern here, notwithstanding the amount of deference courts tend to give school administrators these days when it comes to student dress codes.

Though students don’t enjoy all of the First Amendment rights they would as adults, they are allowed to engage in non-disruptive silent protests. And it’s hard to see much of a difference between arm bands worn to protest the Vietnam War, which the First Amendment protects, and a bracelet worn to raise awareness about cancer. Onlookers in either situation might be uncomfortable, but that alone doesn’t warrant student censorship unless there’s a real risk that student speech will disrupt school activities or interfere with the rights of other students.

And to say that the slogan is "sexually suggestive" misses the mark. We’re not dealing with a high school assembly, where a student takes the mic, and punctuates his speech with graphic sexual innuendos or profanities. We’re talking about a bracelet or a t-shirt that just happens to say"boobies."

Is that the issue . . . the "boobies?"

Admittedly, school officials enjoy a great deal of leeway when it comes to controlling student speech, particularly when student dress codes are involved. But it’s hard to imagine that there’s much left to student speech rights when they’re prohibited from using common-place slang in their cancer awareness campaign.

-Kathleen Bergin