Opinion ID: 6350261
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: A.L.’s First Amendment Claim

Text: We proceed, then, to the merits of A.L.’s First Amendment claim. As an initial matter, Bestor—now substituted as the defendant—insists that A.L.’s case does not implicate constitutionally protected speech at all. The judge was right to reject this contention, which mistakenly treats A.L.’s claim as if it rested on conduct rather than expression. It’s true that certain forms of expressive conduct are entitled to constitutional protection only if the conduct is “‘inherently expressive’” and “comprehensively communicate[s] its own message without additional speech.” Tagami v. City of 3 See Stephen Plum, Updated Letter: Board Votes to Make Masks Recommended Starting May 24, KETTLE MORAINE SCH. DIST. (May 19, 2021), https://www.kmsd.edu/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&DomainID=15&M oduleInstanceID=21&ViewID=6446EE88-D30C-497E-9316-3F8874B3E108 &RenderLoc=0&FlexDataID=8276&PageID=23. 14 No. 21-1959 Chicago, 875 F.3d 375, 378 (7th Cir. 2017) (quoting Rumsfeld v. F. for Acad. & Inst’al Rts., Inc., 547 U.S. 47, 66 (2006)). But that standard doesn’t apply here. This case isn’t about expressive conduct; it’s about speech. Although “clothing as such” is not normally classified as constitutionally protected expression, “there can be speech printed on clothing … that convey[s] a political or other message.” Brandt v. Bd. of Educ., 480 F.3d 460, 465 (7th Cir. 2007). A.L.’s T-shirt fits the bill. The front of the shirt is imprinted with the logo of Wisconsin Carry, Inc., a gunrights group. As the organization’s name and the logo’s image of a handgun imply, Wisconsin Carry endorses and advocates for the right to bear firearms. 4 Reinforcing this message, the back of the T-shirt contains the text of the provision in the Wisconsin Constitution securing the right to keep and bear arms in state law. See WIS. CONST. art. I, § 25. A.L.’s T-shirt, through its text and the image of a handgun, conveys a political message—a positive opinion of firearms and support for the right to bear them. The shirt qualifies as a form of protected expression. One final threshold matter warrants clarification before we reach the substance of A.L.’s claim. As we’ve explained, the dress code at Kettle Moraine High does not, on its face, prohibit clothing depicting firearms. When we asked at oral argument whether A.L. was raising a facial or an as-applied constitutional challenge, his counsel equivocated; he seemed to want to keep all theories on the table. Yet we see no factual or legal basis for a facial challenge in the briefing on 4 See WIS. CARRY, INC., http://www.wisconsincarry.org/ (last visited June 15, 2022). No. 21-1959 15 appeal. The plaintiffs did raise an overbreadth argument in the district court, but the judge rejected it and the argument is not mentioned on appeal. What’s left is a challenge to Kaminski’s interpretation and application of Kettle Moraine High’s dress code on these particular facts—more precisely, a challenge to her determination that all clothing depicting firearms is “inappropriate” and thus prohibited under the code. Bestor endorsed Kaminski’s interpretation and was directly involved in enforcing it, so his substitution as the defendant does not leave an evidentiary gap about how he interprets and enforces the dress code. With that point clarified, we come at last to the substance of A.L.’s claim. The Supreme Court’s foundational studentspeech decision is Tinker, the seminal 1969 case involving several high-school and junior-high students who were suspended for wearing black armbands to school to express their opposition to the Vietnam War. 393 U.S. at 504. They sued school officials for violating their First Amendment rights. The Court agreed that their armband protest was protected speech and announced a legal standard for evaluating restrictions on the constitutional right of public-school students to express their opinions. The Court began by confirming the basic principle that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” Id. at 506. Absent a “specific showing of constitutionally valid reasons to regulate their speech, students are entitled to freedom of expression of their views.” Id. at 511. But the speech rights of students do not mirror those of adults. The Court explained that student-speech claims must be evaluated “in light of the special characteristics of the school environment.” Id. at 506. 16 No. 21-1959 Those special characteristics include “the comprehensive authority of the States and of school officials, consistent with fundamental constitutional safeguards, to prescribe and control conduct in the schools.” Id. at 507. Balancing the speech rights of students with the need for school officials to set standards for student conduct, the Court held that restrictions on student speech are constitutionally justified if school authorities reasonably forecast that the speech in question “would materially and substantially disrupt the work and discipline of the school” or invade the rights of others. Id. at 513. The “substantial disruption” standard announced in Tinker requires “more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint.” Id. at 509. An “undifferentiated fear or apprehension of disturbance is not enough to overcome the right to freedom of expression.” Id. at 508. The armbandwearing students had been punished for “a silent, passive expression of opinion, unaccompanied by any disorder or disturbance,” or any “interference, actual or nascent,” with the school’s work or “the rights of other students.” Id. The record contained no facts that “might reasonably have led school authorities to forecast substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities, and no disturbances or disorders on the school premises in fact occurred.” Id. at 514. Under these circumstances, the Court held that suppressing the students’ speech violated their rights under the First Amendment. Id. Since Tinker the Court has identified “three specific categories of student speech that schools may regulate” regardless of whether the circumstances satisfy Tinker’s “substantial No. 21-1959 17 disruption” standard. Mahanoy Area Sch. Dist. v. B.L. ex rel. Levy, 141 S. Ct. 2038, 2045 (2021). The first and perhaps most obvious category is “indecent[,] … vulgar[,] and lewd speech.” Bethel Sch. Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675, 685 (1986). Fraser concerned a high-school student who was suspended for delivering a “sexually explicit monologue” to an “unsuspecting audience of teenage students” at a school assembly. Id. The Court held that school officials acted well within their broad authority, recognized in Tinker, to discipline the student for his lewd speech because it was “wholly inconsistent with the fundamental values of public school education.” Id. at 685–86 (quotation marks omitted). The Court did not apply Tinker’s “substantial disruption” standard to this category of student speech. It was enough that allowing the student’s sexually explicit speech to go unpunished “would undermine the school’s basic educational mission.” Id. at 685. Second, the Court has held that school officials may regulate student speech “that can reasonably be regarded as encouraging illegal drug use.” Morse v. Frederick, 551 U.S. 393, 397 (2007). Morse involved a high-school student who was suspended for unfurling a large banner bearing the phrase “BONG HiTS 4 JESUS” at a school-sponsored event in front of the school. Id. The banner’s meaning was “cryptic,” id. at 401, but school officials reasonably concluded that it promoted illegal drug use, id. at 410. The Court held that “[t]he First Amendment does not require schools to tolerate at school events student expression that contributes to [the] dangers” of illegal drug use. Id. Again, the Court did not apply the test announced in Tinker. The upshot is that school officials may regulate this category of student speech without regard to Tinker’s substantial-disruption standard. 18 No. 21-1959 The third category is student expression that others “might reasonably perceive to bear the imprimatur of the school.” Hazelwood Sch. Dist. v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260, 271 (1988). Kuhlmeier concerned the authority of school officials to maintain editorial control over the content of a highschool student newspaper. The newspaper was sponsored, supported, and supervised by the school, and a faculty member directed and reviewed the work of the student journalists. Under these circumstances, the editorial content of the newspaper—although student written—carried the imprimatur of the school. The issue, then, was not the same as in Tinker: the question was not whether the school must tolerate particular student speech but whether it must affirmatively promote particular student speech. Id. at 270–71. In other words, the Court had to decide “when a school may refuse to lend its name and resources to the dissemination of student expression.” Id. at 272–73. The Tinker standard was a poor fit. The Court instead applied its First Amendment forum doctrine, concluding that the school-sponsored newspaper was a nonpublic forum. Id. at 267–70. As such, school officials were entitled to regulate its contents “in any reasonable manner.” Id. at 270. Adapting this standard to the publiceducation setting, the Court held that school officials may “exercis[e] editorial control over the style and content of student speech in school-sponsored expressive activities so long as their actions are reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns.” Id. at 273. Tracing these key student-speech precedents brings into sharper focus the core doctrinal question in this case: Does A.L.’s claim fall within any of the three categories of cases No. 21-1959 19 that may be resolved without regard to Tinker’s substantialdisruption standard? The answer is “no.” A.L.’s Wisconsin Carry T-shirt isn’t like the lewd sexual speech at issue in Fraser. Nor is it analogous to the student’s banner in Frederick, which was reasonably understood to promote illegal drug use, or the school-sponsored student newspaper in Kuhlmeier. The default rule is the one announced in Tinker. The judge expressly declined to apply Tinker, opting in- stead to analyze this case under our decision in Muller. That was a mistake, but perhaps an understandable one. Muller involved a fourth-grade student who was denied permission from the school principal to disseminate fliers at school inviting classmates to attend a Bible study at his church. 98 F.3d at 1532–33. The case produced a fractured decision. Judge Manion, writing for himself, traced the evolution of the Supreme Court’s student-speech cases—from Tinker to Kuhlmeier—and suggested that the speech rights of elementary-school students might not enjoy much protection at all. Id. at 1535–39 (opinion of Manion, J.). No other judge on the panel joined this part of his opinion. He ultimately settled on Kuhlmeier as supplying the proper framework for decision. Id. at 1537, 1539. After concluding that the elementary school was a nonpublic forum, he asked only whether the restriction on the student’s distribution of literature was reasonable. Id. at 1541 (“In a nonpublic forum, only unreasonable restrictions are forbidden.”). Judge Eschbach agreed with the application of the Kuhlmeier standard and joined this part of Judge Manion’s opinion. Id. at 1545 (Eschbach, J., concurring). He also joined Judge Manion’s treatment of an argument about content and viewpoint discrimination. After acknowledging the general 20 No. 21-1959 rule that government officials may not restrict speech based on its content or viewpoint, the majority explained its view that the neutrality rule was incompatible with the basic role of public education. Id. at 1542. Summing up, the majority held that although a school “may not act unreasonably, [it] need not tolerate student expression of viewpoints [that] are fundamentally ‘inconsistent with its basic educational mission.’” Id. (quoting Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. at 266). Under the lenient “reasonableness” standard, the majority upheld the school’s speech restriction. Id. at 1543.