Fifth grader suspended for anti-Obama t-shirt

I have to admit to mixed feelings about putting campaign buttons, t-shirts, etc. of any stripe on children. A fifth grader might fall into the age range I have in mind of minors who aren’t mature enough in mind, emotion and intellect to be able to come to some sort of reasonable conclusion, but then again I might be recalling too closely me at that age. Like my classmates, I was exceedingly immature. Or maybe engaging in escapism.

There’s a succinct analysis of the legality behind this issue here, so I won’t get into that (at least not yet). Suffice to say the person who commented that the school should break out their checkbook probably is spot on.

If girls can come to school wearing jeans that have the word “Angel” embroidered across their bottoms, or kids with t-shirts that joke about (even advocate?) drug use, what gives with this? At most this kid is probably guilty of sloppiness so my advice would be to go buy a smaller shirt, re-do the message and get back to class. The message being political, and that being a reason to silence it, strikes me as hypocritical and biased. And if the students there get worked up enough from such a t-shirt that they lose control in a big way, then there are higher-order problems at that school than difference of opinion.

This reminds me of a headline I saw recently re: a professor who assigned an anti-Palin essay, which was later “broadened” to include all candidates. While many are so critical of people who allow their children to wear political slogans, I have to ask: Why we are allowing schools and teachers of being in the business of political indoctrination?