D. A., a Minor, By and Through his Mother, B. A., et al. v. Tri County Area Schools, et al.

Students have a First Amendment right to wear political apparel to school unless it causes substantial disruption. Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503 (1969). The Court later recognized a narrow exception by allowing schools to prohibit profane and sexually lewd speech. Bethel Sch. Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675 (1986). This case concerns “Let’s Go Brandon,” a popular political slogan for expressing disdain for President Joe Biden. Members of Congress have used it during floor speeches, and it airs uncensored on broadcast TV and radio. But a divided Sixth Circuit panel applied Fraser to hold a Michigan school district can ban high school students from silently wearing apparel with the slogan because of its origin in a profane chant. To reach its published holding, the majority split with the Third and Ninth Circuits, which confine the Fraser exception to “plainly” profane and lewd speech. The majority instead held Fraser permits censoring nondisruptive political speech that any single teacher or administrator “reasonably understands” as vulgar. Judge Bush dissented that the test grants schools “unrestrained authority to suppress speech based on subjective interpretations” and, given nationwide confusion over its scope, “the Supreme Court … must ultimately clarify, and ideally limit, Fraser’s reach.” The question presented is whether Fraser permits schools to censor nondisruptive political speech that is not plainly profane or lewd.