Pubdate: Thu, 31 Aug 2006
Source: Burlington Free Press (VT)
Copyright: 2006 Burlington Free Press
Contact:  http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/632
Author: Adam Silverman, Free Press Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

VERMONT STUDENT WINS FREE-SPEECH CASE IN FEDERAL  APPEALS COURT

A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that a Vermont  middle school
violated a student's free-speech rights  when administrators ordered
the 13-year-old to cover up  images on a shirt critical of President
Bush, and then  punished him when he refused.

The decision from a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S.  Circuit Court
of Appeals in New York could prove a  sweeping victory for the rights
of students to  political speech, lawyers said.

"This is a victory for free speech in schools in the  United States
generally," said Stephen Saltonstall, one  of two lawyers who
represented student Zachary Guiles  and his family in their lawsuit
against school  officials in Williamstown. "The ruling has broad
national implications. It's really a total victory for  the First
Amendment in schools."

Williamstown School District attorney Tony Lamb said  the ruling could
lead to problems in educational  settings.

"It calls into question the ability of a school  district to regulate
student dress at all," he said.  "It's going to create significant
problems for schools  in Vermont."

Guiles was 13 and a seventh-grader at Williamstown  Middle/High
School, and the 2004 presidential election  was heating up, when that
May he wore a shirt to school  calling Bush "chicken-hawk-in-chief"
and containing  images of cocaine and a martini. The pictures were
allusions to the president's involvement with alcohol,  and allegedly
with drugs, when he was younger.

Guiles had been wearing the shirt about once a week  since he
purchased it at an anti-war rally that March,  and another student
"whose politics evidently were  opposed to Guiles's" and that
student's mother had  complained to administrators, according to the
court's  26-page opinion.

A school official, citing the dress code ban on apparel  depicting
drugs or alcohol, then presented Guiles three  options: turn the shirt
inside out, tape over all  images and words referring to drugs and
alcohol, or  change clothes. Guiles refused, and he was sent home.

The Guiles family filed a lawsuit against the official,  the school's
principal and the district superintendent.  Judge William Sessions
III, a federal judge who  presides in Burlington, upheld the school's
dress code  in December 2004. The Guileses, working with the  Vermont
chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union,  filed an appeal.

Ten months after the three judges heard arguments in  the appeal, they
agreed that the school went too far.

"The pictures are an important part of the political  message Guiles
wished to convey, accentuating the  anti-drug (and anti-Bush)
message," Judge Richard  Cardamone wrote in the opinion. "By covering
them  defendants diluted Guiles's message, blunting its force  and
impact."

Lamb called the opinion disappointing.

"What we're trying to do is create a position where we  don't allow
images of drugs and alcohol at all," he  said. "This court says we
can't do that, and that's  wrong."

The school district has several options, Lamb said,  including asking
the full 2nd Circuit -- 12 judges --  to hear arguments in the case,
or appeal to the U.S.  Supreme Court. The School Board plans to meet
soon and  consider its next steps.

Guiles, now 15 and about to begin his junior year of  high school at
an arts academy in Michigan, said he  still owns the controversial
T-shirt and wears it  occasionally, though less than he did in 2004.

"I've sort of evolved in my criticisms of Bush," he  said. "It's more
in terms of policies rather than his  past decisions."

Guiles called the appeals court's ruling "just."

"It means that there is free speech for students," he  said. "You
don't leave your rights at the schoolhouse  gates."
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