Public Schools Suck

And so do most of their lawyers. I can't believe the idiot quoted below is effectively categorizing Christian-based messages as "hate speech."

On April 22, sophomore Tyler Chase Harper, 16, wore a shirt with hand-written anti-gay phrases, including "Homosexuality is shameful." He wore it the day after a campus observance of tolerance of gay and lesbian people called "A Day of Silence."

A teacher told Chase, who prefers to go by his middle name, that the slogans violated the school's dress-code ban on "hate behavior." The teacher sent him to the administration office, where he remained for the rest of the day.

With the help of an Arizona-based Christian legal group, Chase filed a federal lawsuit in June, saying school officials violated his civil rights.

His lawyers, the Alliance Defense Fund, cited free-speech cases dating from the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement in asking a federal judge to order the school district not to censor student speech.

School officials encourage students to say homosexuality is acceptable but muzzle those who say it's dangerous, lawyer Robert Tyler wrote in court filings.

Poway Unified School District lawyer Daniel Shinoff said administrators have the authority to ban the T-shirt and cited cases allowing schools to outlaw Confederate flags and clothing depicting controversial musician Marilyn Manson.

He said hateful speech is not guaranteed protection by the First Amendment and is asking U.S. District Judge John A. Houston to throw out the case.

"Homosexuals and bisexuals have the right to go to school without being accosted by offensive words no differently than Jewish students have the right to be free from a symbol offensive to them, such as a swastika," he wrote.