As students head back to school this year school administrators are once again embroiled school dress code fiascos. From shorts that are way too short to pierced lips, today’s administrators are never far away from the latest fashion trend. It stands to reason that the most reasonable fashion choice for any student is the good ol' t-shirt. Today’s public school students rely often rely on t-shirts as a staple of a modern, yet comfortable wardrobe choice.
A case handed down this past spring by the 4th Circuit US Court of Appeals could certainly be filed away in your First Amendment playbook as a typical dress code incident where reasonable school policies prevailed over an unreasonably dressed teenager, but a closer look at this case reveals just how time consuming even the simplest wardrobe infraction can become.
Candice Hardwick should indeed go down in the books as a student who was not only willing to challenge a school dress code policy, but one, who along with her parents, was relentless in doing so for four complete academic years. Hardwick, a middle school and high school student during the incidents that spawned the litigation, wore not one or two troublesome t-shirts, but ended up with a stockpile of at least fourteen controversial t-shirts. Most of the t-shirts bore the Confederate flag in some form and pursuant to past dress code judicial rulings favorable to school administrators in school districts where racial discord maintains a presence, these t-shirts were unacceptable for this public school setting. A portion of the shirts were protest shirts focused on the school administration. The dress code itself was standard fare for most schools and attempts by the parents to convince the school board to revise the dress code policy were unsuccessful.
Hardwick’s parents were insistent that the shirts displayed a pride in family heritage, yet school officials were able to cite recent racial tensions and incidents that clearly illustrated the need for additional improvement. The Court held the Tinker standard allowed school officials to forbid any shirt they could reasonably forecast would cause a disruption. Again, for legal scholars a case that, once seen in in its totality, seems like a First Amendment slam-dunk.
The lesson here is more than your first-year Constitutional law one. It illustrates the persistence of some students and their families to challenge school policies. Had the school administrators in this case not understood the concept of forecasting a “reasonable or materials disruption,” the case could have ended much differently. Instead of losing patience and sound judgment, the administrators wisely and consistently relied on the fact that any of the shirts worn by Hardwick would disrupt the educational process. The case is a glaring example of the types of stress even the most minor legal issues can place on school administrators. Imagine dealing with this student and her family over ten times, only to have her show up at school the next day with a new shirt bearing a new message, some critical of you and your job. In addition, imagine the impact that being the 't-shirt cop' can have on your overall relationship with school culture. Without much detail, it is safe to assume this one dress code situtation demanded a great deal of administrative time and attention - repetitively. Such discussions are necessary to encouarge democracy and maintain school order, but I speculate, can also become tiresome for the school leader. The lesson here is short: the t-shirt, society’s comfy, reliable staple, can also be the principal’s worst nightmare.