T-Shirt Ignites First Amendment Debate

David Montenegro
COM365

The never-ending interpretation of First Amendment rights reached Alan Alda High School on Friday when Colleen Urban was suspended from school for wearing what the principal calls an offensive t-shirt.
Colleen’s shirt, containing the phrase, “If there is a God, she would end the war in Iraq,” apparently caused no disturbance until she was confronted during her fifth period class by her teacher, Jan Gorlin. According to Urban, she was publicly ridiculed by Gorlin because of the shirt with remarks such as “I only teach students who really value what America stands for,” before being grabbed and escorted to the principal’s office.
Once in the office, Urban claims she was again mistreated by the vice principal, Maureen Reed, by having a shirt with the school’s logo on it thrown at her in an effort to make her change clothes, with the shirt striking Colleen in the face. When Urban refused to change clothes, the school’s principal, Mike Bauer, called her parents and told them that she had been suspended for “disrupting the educational environment.” Colleen was then escorted outside to the front entrance by school security to wait for her parents in well-below-freezing temperatures.
In light of what is viewed by the Urban’s as a violation of the First Amendment right to free expression, a suit has been filed in U.S. federal court in Philadelphia. The matter also includes Gorlin’s comments to Colleen were in violation of the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. The Urban’s have hired attorney Sheila McGee from the Tinker, Evers, and Chance firm in Wilmington, Delaware to handle the case.
Both of Colleen’s parents strongly defend their daughter’s right to free expression, with her mother, Rose, citing that, “she’s not in a great frame of mind right now, but she really wasn’t trying to disrupt anything – she just wanted to state her opinion about the war.” Her father, Marty, added, “This is America, isn’t it? All of us – and that includes students – should be allowed to say what we want.”
The school district, however, refuses to admit any wrongdoing. Vice Principal Reed has claimed that Colleen’s shirt interfered with the right of the school officials to maintain discipline in the classroom. “We have every right to put a stop to potentially disruptive actions,” Reed says.
Attorney Sheila McGee countered the school district’s defense by stating, “The school district’s right to maintain order ends when a student hasn’t disrupted anything…Students do not leave their opinions and their right to free expression at the schoolhouse gate.”
Whatever the impending result of this case proves to be, this certainly sparks an interesting debate on whether an institution has a right to police not only the curriculum in the classroom, but also the values of each individual inside the classroom.