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Portfolio 4

Jordan Lee Marzka

College of southern Nevada

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Portfolio 4

At a large high school in the northeastern united states, a school introduced a policy

prohibiting jewelry, emblems, earrings, and athletic caps. This was done due to gang activity in

the school and to help prevent it. A kid who attends the school, Bill Foster who has no gang

affiliations was suspended for wearing an earring. He simply wanted it because he thought his

female classmates would find it attractive. Mr. Foster is filling a suit because he believes the

school is prohibiting his self-expression.

To argue Mr. Foster was wrongfully suspension he has to prove that the earring did not

cause a disruption in the classroom. In the Tinker vs Des Moines, the supreme court ruled

students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the

schoolhouse gate”. The key part of that is expression. Mr. Foster is simply expressing himself as

an individual and thus cannot be punished for it.

Another case that attributes to this is Doe v. Brockton school comm. In which the court

found in favor of students’ crossdressing because it did not cause any disruption to the school at

large. Now if we take this case and apply it to Mr. Foster then we see that the earring he had on

did not cause any kind of disruption to the student body at large. With that, we see Mr. Foster

cannot be suspended because his actions did not harm the student body or the school at large.

A case against Mr. Foster would be the court case of Boroff V. Van Wert City Board of

Educ. In which the court favored a school’s decision to prohibit a student from wearing a rock

band t-shirt because the bands' views went against the school’s educational mission. This can be

placed on Mr. Foster's case by stating the earring in it of itself is not harmful, but what it

represents causes harm. With the school’s policy to help prevent gang activity in place, when Mr.

Foster wears the earring, he is hurting the school’s educational mission it is striving to provide to
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the students. This shows that the school was not wrong in his suspension because Mr. foster

going against the gang policy hurts the educational mission the school is instructed to strive for

and maintain all hours of the day.

Counting to arguer for Mr. Foster's suspension is Hearn & United States v. Muskogee

Public School District, in which the case was settled with the district agreeing to let the plaintiff

wear a headscarf and agreeing to revise its dress code to provide religious exemptions. If we

focus on the last part, we can see it says religious exemptions. Mr. Foster’s earring is not a

religious exemption and thus he can be suspended because the earring is not a religious item he

must have to wear. This shows his suspension is not in any wrongdoing because the school was

not suspending him because of any religious reasons.

In conclusion, I believe Mr. Foster was wrongly suspended. While I do see the school’s

point of view for the kids' safety and well-being, I believe there is more Constitutional leaning

towards more expression in a public school rather than an adhering to a dress code. Mr. Foster

did not pose as a threat to the student body or the schoolhouse at large, and thus I believe with

the examples I showed he would have a better chance of winning the case than losing it.
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References

Boroff v. Van Wert City Bd. of Educ. - 220 F.3d 465 (6th Cir. 2000)

Hearn v. Muskogee public school district, 2004 WL 80465249 (E.D. OK. 2004)

PAT DOE v. YUNITS, No, No. 001060A (Mass. Cmmw. Feb. 26, 2001)

Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 89 S. Ct. 733 (1969)

Underwood, J., & Webb, L. D. (2006). School law for teachers: concepts and applications.
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall.