West Virginia teen arrested for wearing NRA shirt to school

[TailGator]

Anything that disrupts classes is not allowed.

In the reports that we have, which admittedly may be incomplete, he did not disrupt class in any way. He went to class all morning and was challenged in the lunch line by a teacher. I note that there is not only no report of him disrupting class, but no report that any of his morning teachers challenged him about the shirt.

If I were this kid's father, or lawyer, I would be asking whether, indeed, it was the student or the teacher who disrupted someone's education.

This kid was suspended because he knowing challenged a school rule to draw attention to his beliefs.

Did he? Again admitting that the article may be incomplete, the school policy "prohibits clothing and accessories that display profanity, violence, discriminatory messages or sexually suggestive phrases. Clothing displaying advertisements for any alcohol, tobacco, or drug product also is prohibited." Neither firearms nor political organizations are mentioned among the prohibited displays.

This incident differs sharply from that described by SPEMack618 in that the latter reports that the policy was clearly delineated (no shirts depicting items that were not allowed on school property), whereas in the former case, a new policy seems to have been created on the fly. I believe the phrase lawyers like is "arbitrary and capricious."

IANAL, but I would not want to have to prosecute this charge or defend his suspension.

[lcpiper]

OK, so some more digging. The school is claiming that this has nothing to do with the shirt but it is about how the other students reacted to the confrontation in the cafeteria.

Lesson to be learned: Don't do this kind of stuff in the cafeteria teachers.

EDITED:

On a side note: I found a picture of the shirt and now we see the real reason the teacher got all worked up. It's the picture of an AR-15 on the shirt that sent him over the edge. Still, I do not see that this violates the School district's dress code and the school downplaying the shirt and playing up the disturbance.

And this is where the disruption comes in;

The t-shirt confrontation drew attention and cheers in the cafeteria at Logan Middle School last Thursday before Marcum was taken to the school office. Students were reportedly yelling for him and Logan law enforcement officers were called to the school to help restore order.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/04/23...ht-punishment/

[scrubcedar]

Yes, it's a picture of an AR-15 on the t-shirt, with the message "protect your rights".

Let's look a little more closely at that. Allow me to repeat myself here.

Aside from that can you seriously say if this had been a National Press Club t-shirt with a computer symbol saying "protect your rights" the teacher would have found it disruptive? After that we can talk about a t-shirt with a copy of a search warrant mentioning the fourth amendment and "protect your rights". Explain to me how that would have escalated to this point. That is the exact phrase on the t-shirt in question. If it is not offensive to support the first or fourth amendment then it should not be offensive to support the second amendment. Anything other than this show's a clear bias and should mean that the authority figure in question needs a good looking at.

We need to stop backing up and acting like the second amendment is any different than the others. We would find it unreasonable if the teacher was ticked off at the symbol of the first amendment yet you could easily lay every death at the hands of repressive regimes, every death in civil and revolutionary wars over history , and most especially every death in our own spanish american war in the lap of people freely speaking their minds in opposition to something. In other words what the first amendment protects.

What if we were talking about universal background checks and government registration of reporters. People die here because of their reporting the truth even (Rodney King and Koran burning coverage anyone?). They are clearly, provably, dangerous. Let's register and restrain them. "If it saves just one life".

These restrictions are simply not reasonable.

[lcpiper]

Edited, Scudbar I needed to read your post more thoroughly.
OK, got ya,

These restrictions are simply not reasonable.

And I agree.


But the teacher didn't find the shirt disruptive, and the disruption wasn't about the shirt.

The teacher didn't like it or didn't fully understand the School's dress code. He tried to make the kid take it off, the kid refused.

Then the other kids went crazy over it yelling, making noise, being unruly teenagers.

The teacher is claiming the kid got belligerent with him over it and that is what drove the other kids into a frenzy.

The school called in the cops to quell the riot.

Then, in the School Office, they asked the kid to take off the shirt again, again he refused, they suspended the kid blaming him, not the teacher or the other kids, for the disturbance, and had the cops arrest him for it.

The teacher was wrong to ask the kid to take off the shirt.
The teacher was really wrong to do it in the cafeteria instead of somewhere more controlled.
The principle is wrong for calling the cops, can't handle the kids, shouldn't be doing the job.
The cops were right in responding to the school's request for help, but they were wrong to arrest the kid. They should have known better.

In fact, the Officers should have recognized the real trouble with all this, called a Police Chief in, had a good talk with the principle and released his officers back to their other assignments and duties. Police Chief then should have called the School District's Superintendent and let him/her know that this School Principle is about to get the District and maybe the City sued.

[deepcreek]

“disrupting an educational process” just sounds like a blanket law that can be applied to anything when there is nothing wrong and they cannot find a rule that was broken.
“obstructing an officer” is another blanket law that can be applied to anything like refusing to turn a shirt inside out.

The kid only refused to turn his shirt inside out. He didn't refuse to go to the office or be detained in the office. I hope the school gets a lawsuit and people get fired.

The real issue is adults abused their positions of power to bully a kid because he did not share their political beliefs. These people need to be kept away from kids and any kind of positions of authority.

[scrubcedar]

If that is the situation then I certainly can't fault LE.
Lc,where did you find that info? I followed the earlier link you had and couldn't find it.

The unfortunate thing is I could see this being one of my children. I taught them to stick up for their beliefs regardless of who it was challenging them. It never escalated to this point but there were times I ended up in school officials office over it.

My kids knew that this was going to be the expected result and that the only reason they would be punished by me was if they had been disrespectful so they were pretty careful. After the school official involved interviewed everyone, and we talked about the teachers inserting their political/religious views into the classroom (my kids had normally put me in a position where the teacher was pretty clearly over the line) the administrator found himself apologizing instead of handing out punishment. You have no idea how many times this happened with four kids in school for more than two decades.

That being said, it was never handled this badly.

[lcpiper]

After the school official involved interviewed everyone.....

Well this is key isn't it.

You had the benefit of a School Administrator who knows how to handle things.

The School in Logan, WV. seems not to be so fortunate and instead of taking personal responsibility to first, take control of the student body, and second, to get a clear picture of what happened, and involve the parents in what should or shouldn't be done. This administrator simply called the cops to establish order and washed their hands of it. Now it will come back and bite them in the arse and they still won't understand why it's all going wrong. It will be someone else' fault but not theirs.

I'll find those other articles.
This is from a more or less local news agency and it details things by tracking their initial reports and following with updates.


http://www.wsaz.com/news/wvnews/head...203875101.html

[armoredman]

I doubt this district will have a football team for the next four years as they pay off this lawsuit. Oops. I agree in that I hope the teacher gets fired ASAP.
SPEMack618 , I don't know when/where you went to school, but I was part of JROTC in the early 80s, and we wore our OG-507 fatigues to class on uniform day, later upgraded to the woodland camo BDUs. Many of us wore camo to school, surplus pants or shirts, gun t-shirts, tanks/fighter plane/insert random military image here t-shirts with no problems. Heck, we had a rifle range on campus! This was in Free AZ, of course. If I had worn a t-shirt such as stated in this story to school, I probably would have had Sgt Johnson tell me how all of that extra battery junk on the pictured rifle would have failed him in Vietnam, and a few other teachers might have commented that they wouldn't mind buying one themselves.

[scrubcedar]

Actually Lc, we did have a really gifted administrators we ran across. We also had a few that had already decided the correct punishment for having an actual belief system different than the staff's, especially one that they could defend well, should probably merit harsh punishment without even talking to the child involved.
Once I got on the scene I helped them understand a few things. A. I knew that they hadn't done their homework, so to speak and I had more and better info than they had gotten. B. I knew the rules almost as well as they did. C. I was capable of being a serious problem, and in fact their boss knew me by name from previous encounters. D.I had been volunteering in their school and I knew where the teacher in questions problems were, as did others.

This was all pretty easy as normally this teacher was out of the norm so to speak and had quite a reputation as a problem child before they stepped this far over the line.

Once our respective positions were defined then everything worked out.
My wife once called this part of my personality Papa Bear.

[Double Naught Spy]

The district will have football teams. The teacher, principal, district, and officer are not going to be fired.

Aside from what was mentioned in the article specifically, it conveniently left out the following aspects of the Logan County Schools dress code...

Since there is a direct relationship between dress and behavior, it is believed that students and staff should dress appropriately for the school setting. Appropriate, will be defined here as right and correct for the school setting and functions, conducive to learning, and shall not distract from or be disruptive to the learning process.

If the NRA shirt was deemed as not appropriate, then it isn't appropriate. The listing of various things not considered appropriate is only an example list.

The district may get sued, but I bet they don't lose. Their rules give leeway as to what is appropriate and what is not and it isn't what is defined by the student.
http://lc2.boe.loga.k12.wv.us/manhigh/code.htm

Let me add that I think the shirt should have been allowed. I also though political shirts should have been allowed back in 1980 when I was in high school, but they were deemed inappropriate in the weeks leading up to the election, again, at a public school. Kids had to turn their shirts inside out if they wore them and got detention for secondary offenses.

[scrubcedar]

Double naught don't buy into this. As I mentioned above if this were a National Press Club t-shirt no one would have batted an eye. These are both organizations formed to fight for a specific part of the bill of rights.
Yes I know right now guns and schools are a sensitive issue. The reason it is a more sensitive issue than any number of first amendment issues, some of them involving deaths, is because of the focus of the national press, not because they don't exist.

This is not about a minor political cause. This is about our founding document, and there should never be a time that supporting that founding document quietly on a shirt is "disruptive". Disrupting what? Your effort to minimize and destroy the rights in the document?

When you put down into words that you cannot wear a shirt supporting our system of government. Then I will buy this being inappropriate. Of course no one will admit to this, so this point is moot.

You can't ban a shirt that you are supposed to be teaching the concepts set forth upon it. Your textbooks are supposed to cover and endorse this concept for heavens sake!

[44 AMP]

If the kids in the cafeteria were cheering his name as the teacher took him to the office for refusing to remove the "offending" shirt, then it would seem to me that they were either 1) cheering him for standing up for our rights, or 2) cheering him for standing up to the teacher (seems more likely, odds are a teacher like that isn't real popular with the kids).

Makes me wonder if the teacher included the phrase "and your little dog too!"

[NWPilgrim]

I wonder if there are any student photos from that day which show other types if t-shirts being worn without hassle. Even using the broader policy statement what proof us there his shirt was offensive or disruptive, except as the teacher made it so? I agree there should be consideration of whether the teacher was the one being disruptive by his BEHAVIOR versus a student minding his own business wearing a printed T.

[tomrkba]

Somehow, the administration decided that the NRA promotes violence. That is the ONLY rule violation I can see (from the idjit's perspective since the NRA does nothing of the sort).

I am thinking the NRA's legal counsel needs to get involved and put a stop to it.

[lcpiper]

We'll see one way or the other. We do have a system for this, methods for redressing grievances, etc.

First telling bit of news will come from the DA and if they are going to charge the kid and if so what charge they file.

After that it will come down to what is done, who get's sued and the outcome of such things.

I hope the news continues to follow this, I can't wait for the next episode

[Double Naught Spy]

This is not about a minor political cause. This is about our founding document, and there should never be a time that supporting that founding document quietly on a shirt is "disruptive". Disrupting what? Your effort to minimize and destroy the rights in the document?

LOL, this isn't about any founding documents. This is about a kid's behavior who refused to do as he was told in school by an adult charged with his supervision. He wore a shirt that a faculty member found to be inappropriate and refused to do as instructed to remedy the situation. It doesn't matter what was on the shirt or what type of shirt this was. Once the student refused (and repeatedly from what is described), the problem occurred.

Note that the school did not have him arrested. They did call the cops. It was up to the cops as to whether or not they made an arrest. They chose to do so. Last I checked, calling the cops with a complaint is not a liable act unless performed illegally. I see no valid argument that such was the case.

[Brian Pfleuger]

Originally Posted by DNS

LOL, this isn't about any founding documents. This is about a kid's behavior who refused to do as he was told in school by an adult charged with his supervision. He wore a shirt that a faculty member found to be inappropriate and refused to do as instructed to remedy the situation. It doesn't matter what was on the shirt or what type of shirt this was. Once the student refused (and repeatedly from what is described), the problem occurred.

There has to be a reasonable standard. It doesn't matter what was on the shirt, it matters whether a reasonable person would think it "disruptive". What if this faculty member found little cloth alligators on the left breast of shirts to be inappropriate? Maybe just red shirts?

I'd virtually guarantee that this is another result of the same asinine "Zero Tolerance" policies that result in 13 year old girls getting suspended for sharing Midol. "Zero Tolerance" is another way of saying "We can't trust these educated folks to make reasonable decisions so we must default to the "safest" possible position which requires no common sense to implement." Such policies create an environment where the question becomes "How can I find a reason that "Object X" violates the rules." rather than the common-sense "Is it reasonable to believe that "Object X" is a problem."

Common sense has been so obliterated from our society that I'm not even sure the average person still has the ability to use logical problem solving skills to make decisions.

[Metal god]

I agree that this may not be about the NRA , bill of rights or even a shirt .It's about being able to say no to someone that ask you to do something that has no legal , moral or ethical foundation . Am I hearing people saying if a teacher tells you to do something you must comply no matter what ?

I can't imagine anyone saying that , so where is the great line in the sand that we all can see and reference . IMO the teacher was wrong to ask him to remove and or what ever the shirt . There fore any and all things that happened after was a result of the teachers actions making the disruption the fault of the teacher .

[OuTcAsT]

LOL, this isn't about any founding documents.

Sure it is, It's absolutely a matter of denying a person his right to express himself about the 2nd Amendment, by way of the 1st. No more, no less.

This is about a kid's behavior who refused to do as he was told in school by an adult charged with his supervision. He wore a shirt that a faculty member found to be inappropriate and refused to do as instructed to remedy the situation.

And the: Kid, Parents, and according to the reports, even the other students disagree with the degree the shirt was not "appropriate" Thus the challenge.

There are rules in place in schools, businesses, and pretty much everywhere that are unreasonable, unconstitutional, or even illegal, if nobody challenges them, they remain so.

It doesn't matter what was on the shirt or what type of shirt this was.

It matters a great deal...

There has to be a reasonable standard. It doesn't matter what was on the shirt, it matters whether a reasonable person would think it "disruptive". What if this faculty member found little cloth alligators on the left breast of shirts to be inappropriate? Maybe just red shirts?

That "reasonable standard" is what is going to be tested here.
I, personally, am glad to see that I am not the only one who raises their children to defend their rights at all costs.

[MLeake]

DNS, if the school system's published rules did not explicitly ban that sort of shirt, then your argument becomes solely one of "do whatever the teacher says to do."

That may sometimes be true, and yes the schools have in loco parentis responsibilities.

However, it is not always true, and it is not necessarily true. And, since this student had gone all through his morning classes without issue, it would seem the issue was with the teacher in the cafeteria, in particular.

As others have noted, that teacher chose to initiate the confrontation in that particular venue; that teacher could have waited, or asked the student to come with him someplace more private for a quick discussion, or asked the principal to come to the cafeteria and provide guidance. Instead, that teacher opted to pursue things as we have read.

So, that teacher is kind of an idiot, and I suspect that doing everything that teacher says to do could result in problems of their own.

[scrubcedar]

Anybody else get from the news reports that the teacher asked the student to take the shirt off, rather than turn it inside out, have him go home etc. All the news reports seem to agree on this. I have a problem with a random teacher asking my child to disrobe considering the inappropriate student teacher "interactions" ,so to speak, we've seen lately.

Double naught, you're sure welcome to your own opinion on this but about the time that silent, written, restrained, support of our bill of rights is something that can be suppressed in any taxpayer funded institution I feel pretty strongly that said institution should be examined closely, with an eye towards replacing it with something that will support our continued freedom.

In this case it looks like corrective action is already taking place. But let me make myself clear. If this were my kid in my school district and the administration backed this play without the school board cleaning house as a result. I would round up as many like minded individuals as possible and we would make a strong effort to clean out the school board itself, then gut the administration as needed from there.

I spent hours volunteering in my kids schools every year. I wouldn't have had a problem spending them as a part of the School board if needed.

If all this, as well as my previous posts on this seem hard nosed or even mean this is one of the few ways you can trigger that sort of reaction in me.

As far as I'm concerned these schools are not doing all that well teaching the core topics by any reasonable measure.
If you are wasting my child's precious class room time to try to brainwash him/her you should be warned once, then shown the door.
I get to teach my child an ethical system, I'm their parent. You get to teach them math, science, etc. that's it.
I don't know you, I didn't hire you, and I certainly haven't given you permission to indoctrinate my child. Get away from my kid's heart, teach his mind, that is what you were hired for
. If you don't heed this advice, yes, you will feel like you've tangled with some fairly ugly wild animal.

It's that important. And always will be.

[zxcvbob]

It's the school principal that needs to be fired much more so than the teacher, for trying to pass the buck to the police instead of handling the problem.

[pmeisel]

Jared Marcum, 14, said the shirt did not violate Logan Middle School's dress code policy.

"I was surprised. It shocked me that the school didn't know their own dress code and their own policy. I figured they would have known not to call me out on that shirt because there was nothing wrong with it," Marcum said in a telephone interview.

Marcum's stepfather, Allen Lardieri, said the youth was waiting in line in the school cafeteria Thursday when a teacher ordered the eighth-grader to remove the T-shirt or to turn it inside out.

Marcum said was sent to the office where he again refused the order.

From the Charleston Daily Mail a few days ago. The kid is back in school, which suspended him for one day only. Not sure if anyone is going to pursue it any further legally. My guess is that the teacher in question has probably been told to cool his jets, in Logan County there are lots more guns than people.

[scrubcedar]

pmeisel, as I noted above I've had this sort of a fight with my kids school before. I've had a high rate of success because of just the reason you mentioned.
The teacher involved was clearly outside the rules.
It wouldn't surprise me if the reason the student body got ugly during the incident is because the teacher has alienated a large number of them by being a jerk in the classroom. Think about the teachers that were respected while you were in school, would they have been treated this way by large numbers of kids?

[Al Norris]

First, we all realize that after the one day suspension (Fri. Apr. 19th) that this same student wore the same T-Shirt to school on Mon. the 22nd... Don't We? Not only that, but many of this kids friends wore similar T-Shirts that same day. No One Was Hassled By The Teachers Or Staff!

Oh! You didn't know that? http://news.yahoo.com/w-va-teen-arre...165956399.html

Secondly, students do not leave their 1A rights at the schoolhouse door: Tinker v. Des Moines (1969)

Finally, this is exactly the kind of 1A violation that Tinker has said was not to happen. Oh, and everyone is aware that the NRA has backed several such cases in the past and has won all of them, as civil rights violations? You don't? Do your research, before you gainsay what is going on here.

Although Tinker has been modified in the intervening years, I don't believe any of the exceptions are relevant to this case. Here, the school was blatantly wrong and is now in full CYA mode. This is most evident in that the T-Shirt is now not the issue, when it was the primary cause of the original confrontation.