ACLU of Virginia Seeks Guarantee of Student Free Speech in Prince William Schools (4/24/2006)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: media@aclu.org
Elementary School Students Were Punished for Wearing “Latinos Forever”
T-shirts
RICHMOND, VA– The American Civil Liberties Union of
Virginia today said it has asked the Prince William County Schools to make an
unambiguous statement guaranteeing free speech rights for students and to ensure
fair treatment for students who wear message-bearing T-shirts. The request
comes in the wake of the controversial punishment last month of two Occoquan
Elementary School students – ages 5 and 8 -- for wearing T-shirts to school
proclaiming “Latinos Forever.”
“We’ve received some assurances that
student free speech will be permitted in the future, but there’s way too much
wiggle room in the school board attorney’s statement,” said ACLU of Virginia
Executive Director Kent Willis. “As written, almost any circumstance could
justify suspension of First Amendment rights.”
In her letter to
Willis, school board attorney Mary McGowan wrote that schools “…will not
prohibit students from expressing their political beliefs by wearing clothing
such as the T-shirts in question, so long as they are not worn, as they were on
March 31, on a day and under circumstances where disruption of the schools and
injury to students is foreseeable.”
McGowan also refuted the ACLU’s
contention that the two students, Joseph Soriano, 5 and Anderson Urrutia, 8, had
been treated unfairly, claiming that they were “never punished nor prevented
from attending school.”
Willis took issue with this statement.
“Holding the children in the principal’s office for three hours before calling
their parents and having them eat their lunch sitting on the floor constitutes
punishment in the eyes of most people,” he said. “And while technically
the kids were not prevented from attending school, they were certainly not
allowed to go to class. There’s something fishy going on here. When the
parents arrived at school their children were wearing extra shirts they had with
them over the “Latinos Forever” T-shirts. With the message covered, what
was the real reason they were kept from class?”
In addition to
seeking a clear statement of student free speech rights, the ACLU also seeks
assurances that in future instances, parents will be contacted in a timely
manner and children whose clothes are deemed inappropriate will be allowed to
change, if possible, and attend class.
Willis’s April 3 letter to
Occoquan Principal Todd Erickson is available at: www.acluva.org/newsreleases2006/Apr3.html#Ltr1Occoquan
McGowans
April 4 response is available at: www.acluva.org/newsreleases2006/McGowanResponse.pdf
The
ACLU’s April 21 response to McGowan is available at: www.acluva.org/newsreleases2006/Apr24.html#Ltr2Occoquan
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