Last updated on 2026-10-13
Grown adult Nancy Turbak Berry can continue to wear her Mayday Health sweatshirt for now, but kids can’t wear the smirkingly vulgar “Let’s Go Brandon” sweatshirts to school if the principal says no. So said the United States Supreme Court yesterday in its refusal to take up an appeal from some Michigan MAGA brats:
In the “Let’s Go Brandon” case, D.A. ex rel. B.A. v. Tri County Area Schools, the court had been asked to address the constitutionality of a school’s ban on clothing bearing the phrase, which is used as a substitute for an expletive against former President Joe Biden.
The dispute began in 2022, when two brothers wore the “Let’s Go Brandon” sweatshirts, which they had received from their mother for Christmas, to Tri County Middle School in Howard City, Michigan, where they were in sixth and eighth grade. After school administrators required the boys to remove the sweatshirts, they filed a lawsuit against the school district, arguing that it violated their First Amendment rights when it barred them from wearing the sweatshirts.
A federal district court threw out the brothers’ claims, and a divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit upheld that ruling. Writing for the majority, Judge John Nalbandian explained that, as a general rule, courts should give “some deference” to a school district’s decisions about what student speech is vulgar. “And here the uncontroverted origin of the slogan shows a plainly vulgar meaning,” Nalbandian stated. That vulgar meaning, Nalbandian continued, “trumps politics. And the protection for political speech doesn’t give a student carte blanche to use vulgarity at school—even when that vulgarity is cloaked in innuendo or euphemism.”
The brothers came to the Supreme Court in March, asking the justices to take up their case. They argued that the lower court’s decision “poses a stark threat to the First Amendment rights of millions of public school students. It licenses individual teachers and administrators to banish nondisruptive political speech containing sanitized expressions if it clashes with their personal notion of ‘vulgarity.’”
…The school district countered that although the students characterize “public schools as ‘nurseries of democracy,’” their “approach would transform those nurseries of democracy into nurseries of debauchery.”
…By denying review, the Supreme Court left the 6th Circuit’s ruling in favor of the school district in place [Kelsey Dallas and Amy Howe, “Court Declines to Hear Cases on ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Sweatshirts, Felons’ Second Amendment Rights, COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates, and Other Notable Issues,” SCOTUSblog, 2026.10.05].
Kids may still wear clothing and pins expressing their honest opinions about political matters. But teachers and administrators can still put the kibosh on turning political discourse into coded childish cursing.
Dark Brandon is my spirit guide.
Time, place, and manner restriction precedent is pretty clear that narrowly tailored, content neutral policies addressing a school’s compelling interest to educate kids would be protected.
Ohhh, the poor little blithering idiots. You have to feel sorry for them. They have a mother who’s brain dead too.
As a retired teacher, I remember the challenges with dress codes. If students wore offensive t-shirts, they were sent to the principal. They usually returned wearing a different shirt.
One time, a 7th grader was bothered by a shirt the custodian wore. It said, “Forget the horse, ride a cowgirl.” The graphics were somewhat worn off, yet he too had to change.
If someone wore a “F Trump” shirt, they would probably be sent home or suspended.
When we faced this shirt in my school, my question was if we would allow students to wear a shirt with a picture of Johnny Cash snarling and holding up his middle finger (and only that finger) to the camera? The shirt did not have profane words printed, het the f-bomb was more than implicit. Banning that shirt was not a restriction against country music or Cash; it was a recognition that profanity – even thinly veiled – is disruptive to school.
This (proper) decision had nothing to do with political speech and everything to do with profanity is school.
Listen I had the school tell me to get a haircut ever since the fifth grade. My older brother bought me a Rolling Stones album and an Animals album for Christmas and my life was changed for the better so every six weeks I got thrown out of school until I got my haircut until I graduated high school. A few times I went before the school board but that was really pointless. Live and learn.
The school board I served on had to deal with spaghetti straps, which had a resurgence in teen fashion in the late 1990s-2000s. The school board was asked to add spaghetti straps to the banned clothing. My daughter pointed out that it was stupid to ban the straps which held up girls tops. I informed the superintendent of that point of view, and it was clarified to something like “garments having spaghetti.straps.” My daughter pointed out that that was just as stupid because spaghetti straps could be on all sorts of garments. Anyway, she said, kids would still wear the spaghetti straps, but be more likely to cover them up under a sweater when teachers were around.
RCAS once prohibited me wearing a “Bullshirt” cartoon hoodie. Brats! Then I married a Catholic and learned to swear like a MoFo :/
Leslie, Your high school handbook would have clearly stated that vulgar messages are forbidden.
When I was in junior high in Sioux Falls, a classmate had scrawled a big 69 on his notebook. A teacher noticed and made him go to the principals office. He explained, “It’s for the Class of 69. See here. I have “Class of 69.” “Class of” was spelled in tiny letters. Our class got the OK to write “Class of 69” from ninth grade through to graduation.