Teen sues over “Lesbian Barbie” T-shirt Ban
In Queens, New York, a girl was told that her t-shirt with the phrase “Barbie is a Lesbian” was too “inappropriate” for display in school. I have no idea what the courts are going to decide in this case because it certainly isn’t a profane statement, but I tend to agree with the teachers who made her take it off because I think it is completely inappropriate for school.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with the content of the shirt, but there is a time and place for everything and school is not the place. Schools should be, and in most cases are, afforded the ability to make rules in order to achieve the goals of teaching the children in this country. Whether the shirt is constitutionally protected is not the question. It is. Is it protected while a student is attending a public school? Not a chance. It is disruptive. Schools need the ability to have a selective dress code to maintain an environment conducive to learning. If it hinders students’ ability to learn at school then it should not be allowed.
It is your constitutional right to run but should you be allowed to sprint down the hallway?
It is your right to have free speech, but should you be allowed to drop F-bombs in a classroom?
It is your constitutional right to go to the bathroom, but should you be allowed to get up and go whenever you want?
It is your constitutional right to wear pretty much any clothing you want, but should you be allowed to wear a bikini top or speedo’s in school?
We need rules to run our school systems effectively. I am willing to give this latitude to the scholastic world. Doesn’t high school meet for about 6.5 hours per day? Is anyone impeding on the constitution by limiting certain things within those hours?
Ultimately, this should be an exercise in common sense. Is that t-shirt helping or hurting the environment for learning? If you answered no, you are extremely jaded and unreasonable. It obviously is and it is unnecessary.
They are turning this into a gay rights issue and it has nothing to do with it. If it were a shirt proclaiming heterosexuality, it would be just as disruptive and treated the same way. Take the shirt off and drop the lawsuit. Use some common sense when getting dressed in the morning.
I won’t even say anything about the parental issues that I am thinking of right now because you can all fill in the blanks on your own.
Comments
10 Responses to “Teen sues over “Lesbian Barbie” T-shirt Ban”
Sideblog 
- FreeTheAirwaves.org Tuesday, 19 August 2008, 7:51 am
Google has a vested business interest in this project, but I am rooting for them anyway. Google wants to take that unused fuzzy space between TV channels and broadcast internet signals all over the. […] - Browns vs. Giants - Preseason Game 2 Live Blog at WFNY Monday, 18 August 2008, 4:19 pm
The nice guys over at Waiting for Next Year are going to be live-blogging their event in a chat room over at their site. I am a geek, and will be joining them. Come on over. - Dan Gilbert is My Hero Sunday, 10 August 2008, 5:46 am
Cleveland Cavaliers owner on all the LeBron James rumors, ”The reason this thing is where it’s at,” Gilbert said, ”is that we’ve got a bunch of bored, East Coast sports writers who have noth. […] - LeBron to Europe? I Don’t Think So Thursday, 7 August 2008, 4:22 am
So, while the major media continues to plot LeBron’s departure from Cleveland, there is a sane voice out there letting everyone know how unlikely the most outlandish scenarios truly are. - Top Gun 2???!?!?!??!?!? Wednesday, 23 July 2008, 5:50 am
According to reports, the plot outline is, (wait for it) “The idea is Maverick is at the Top Gun school as an instructor — and this time it is he who has to deal with a cocky new female pilot.” - Be Afraid Utah Tuesday, 22 July 2008, 7:26 am
Carlos Boozer is a snake and one of the most dishonorable people in professional sports history. I guess I am not over this just yet. - How much you wanna bet… Thursday, 3 July 2008, 9:18 pm
That this 4-day work week will actually increase the amount of gasoline that these employees will be using? Instead of commuting to work, they will now be going to the grocery store, going to do som. […] - In-Car DVD Players are Stupid Thursday, 26 June 2008, 10:15 am
At least they will be when we get a load of in-car wifi!!!!! (I am such a geek.) - George Carlin is Gone Monday, 23 June 2008, 4:34 am
I once bet a guy in college that I could watch a George Carlin special on HBO without laughing. I did it, but it wasn’t at all easy. There is going to be a void left by Carlin dying. - Accepted Behaviors Tend to Increase Thursday, 19 June 2008, 12:15 pm
If you become too accepting of a condition that you really don’t want to encourage, you might just end up with unintended consequences.
Forget the lawsuit for a second. Do you think the girl would have gotten in trouble in the first place if her shirt said “Barbie is Straight”? If you put each shirt on 1,000 girls in 1,000 schools across the country, I’m guessing that the “straight” shirts would catch much less static. I’m not arguing that either is appropriate for school. They’re not. I think, though, that the likely difference in treatment is one reason why civil rights organizations latch on to stuff like this.
No doubt that “Barbie is Straight” would have caused less ruckus, because being Straight doesn’t offend anyone.
Not that I feel that saying Barbie’s a lesbian should offend anyone at all - it obviously should not - but it will. You can’t expect to wear that shirt to school and not have it raise some eyebrows, even in Queens. (Strangely…..appropriate….)
There might be someone who’s offended by a “Barbie is Straight” shirt. There might be someone who’s offended by a plaid shirt. But we can’t please everyone, and school’s got to be about damage control and containment. If one person’s pissed about your shirt, no one cares. If a hundred people are pissed about your shirt, then you have a problem.
Also, how much do you want to bet that almost none of the students in the school cared at all.
Right. That was Craig’s point, I think. I’m just saying that there is a hint of an equal-protection argument to be made here. People should not wear inflammatory messages to school if their school has rules against doing so. Justin, your suggestion that these rules should be enforced only if enough people are offended is a little unsettling. We can’t please everyone, but we should at least hold everyone to the same standards of behavior. Right? It seems to me that students who are displeased or offended by someone wearing a pro-straight or anti-gay slogan are much less likely to make their voices heard for fear of reprisal. You will never know how many there are. I hope the rules against inflammatory political/religious/gender/whatever apparel are there as much to protect the minority’s interests as they are the majority’s.
I’m not saying the rules should only be enforced if enough people are offended. I think it’s probably safe to say that the school’s rule regarding inappropriate dress is pretty vague. It probably says something along the lines of, “Students will not come to school dressed inappropriately.”
In our high school, the rule was “Shirts, caps, (etc, whatever) will not bear offensive slogans, logos, statements or imagery.”
Now, who decides what’s offensive? The majority.
If I wear a shirt that says “I worship the sun,” no one is going to be offended. If I wear a shirt that says “I worship Satan,” it’s going to piss a lot of people off. Why should the school’s administration bother with me and my shirt if one kid comes in to complain? If two-hundred kids walk out in protest, it’s a much bigger problem.
My point is that administrators at schools have enough on their plates and are vastly outnumbered. They’ve got to pick their spots. Is a “Barbie’s a lesbian” shirt worth their time? Yes, because it’s going to cause significant unrest in the school. Is a “Barbie is straight” shirt worth their time? No. Because it’s not going to cause a problem big enough to warrant the intervention of the school’s administration.
I don’t know where school administrators draw the line, but I’m certain it’s not at one kid. Is ten pissed-off kids enough to step in? Twenty? I suppose it depends upon the school.
I guess I’d prefer a ‘no slogans’ rule to one that is enforced at the whim of whoever squawks the loudest. It would be easier to enforce, because it would apply globally. “Hail Satan!” “Jesus is Lord!” “I Like Cheese!” All of you, go change. My 16-year-old self would assault my 38-year-old self for saying this, but I think this sort of thing is one reason that school uniforms are a good idea.
I still think the idea that the administrators have so much on their plate that they should abandon fairness and cater to the majority is a bad one. It doesn’t feel too dangerous in a high school, but when the broader adult world acts that way, and it frequently does, bad things happen. I could rattle through all the cliched civil rights and govenment oppression examples. I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree on this one.
BTW, the notion of a T-shirt causing “unrest” is hilarious. I imagine someone walking into a school building and all of a sudden there are riots and mayhem.
Well, Craig said that “We need rules to run our school systems effectively.” I can’t argue with that. I suppose Thomas Jefferson couldn’t argue with the King of England either… oh wait.. he did. So, should we not praise the people who are checking our rules for us? Thank you crazy people who are willing to call a reality check on us all. We need you around more than ever, especially in the days of the “Ashcroft Protocols”.
So, when something is as vague, as Justin points out, as the dress code at a school… or the definition of terrorist, or “enemy combatant”, we need people to force the rules to be good rules, not stupid rules. Hey, if Mr Bush would like to offer a definition of terrorist, we would clear up a few issues I have with his administration.
Or, do what is suggested, lay down like the sheep you are. Take off the shirt. Conform. Comply. Resistance if futile. Besides, you will be labeled as a terrorist of enemy combatant or some such thing here in the near future anyway, so might as well give up now.
“Do not go gently into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Oh, Justin, I took a poll. 6 out of 10 people in my office are offended by your post. Please remove it. Just kidding.
Har-har!
The idea of a shirt causing unrest is funny, and not just in the hyperbolic way Chris mentioned. Kids don’t care. Kids have a sense of humor.
It was obviously the teachers and administrators who had a problem with this shirt in the first place, and so it probably really was a random cracking of the whip. That’s what I’d be arguing if I were this girl or her ACLU-provided attorney.
And, just to clarify, I’m not saying that they should start taking votes on whose shirts are acceptable. I’m just saying the administrators have to weigh how much guff they’re going to have to take because of this shirt against the hassle of sending the student home to change.
Imagine you’re an advertiser and you run an ad that’s a little risque and consumers and consumer groups start to complain. At what point do you pull it? When the Iowa Association of Seventh Day Adventists complains? Probably not. But what about when the NAACP complains? Now you’ve got a real problem. Things only get done when something’s become a big enough headache to warrant action. One or two complaints isn’t a big enough problem.
This is, of course, not to say that the majority needs to be pissed off to warrant some sort of action. But when we’re saying things like “offensive content” is not allowed, and we’re living with that vagueness, then we’re accepting whatever definition of offensive the majority can come up with.
Let’s just all agree on topless high school from now on, eh?
I think you’ve solved it.
I concur. Topless for men and women… all beings being created equally.