Senior Briana Popour had worn the shirt to her South Carolina school plenty of times before, but earlier this month, she was suspended for it for the first time. “Nobody knows I’m a lesbian,” it read. With the national press she has received for how an unnamed school official treated her, the message is likely no longer true.
The Chesnee High School official pulled Popour out of class to tell her the shirt was disruptive. The student handbook bans “clothing deemed distracting, revealing, overly suggestive, or otherwise disruptive,” as well as any attire that is “immodest, obscene, profane, lewd, vulgar, indecent or offensive.” She explained to WSPA, “When I said something to him about the handbook, he said, ‘Well, not everything is in the handbook.’”
Briana’s mother, Barbara Popour, confronted the official when she went to pick up her daughter. “He does not like people in his school wearing anything that says anything about lesbians, gays, or bisexuals,” was the only explanation she received. For Briana, this wasn’t acceptable. “I was told to change my shirt or go home, so I went home because I wasn’t going to allow him to tell me I can’t wear a shirt that shows who I am.”
As Eugene Volokh points out at the Washington Post, the speech is constitutionally protected, and the school would need to “have real evidence that there is indeed likely to be such a violent response, rather than just a concern that some people might be ‘distract[ed]’ by it.” If someone had threatened Popour with violence for the shirt, the school should also address the actions by those students, but there is no evidence of that in this case.
Popour follows in a long line of students who have been disciplined by their schools for wearing shirts supportive of LGBT rights:
- An Alabama student was told in 2011 she couldn’t wear her “gay? fine by me” t-shirt because officials were “concerned for her safety.” The school later backed down and admitted that the shirt “has not caused a substantial disruption and the student will be allowed to wear it.”
- A few months later, another Alabama school official told a student to take off a sweatshirt that read, “Warning, This Individual Infected With ‘The Gay,’ Proceed With Caution,” similarly claiming it was “disruptive.” The same administrator had previously blocked the students from attending prom as part of a same-sex couple.
- In 2012, an Ohio student successfully sued his school for the right to wear a shirt that read, “Jesus Is Not A Homophobe.” He was also awarded $20,000 in damages, costs, and attorney’s fees.
- Later that year, another Ohio school forced many students to change shirts that were supportive of LGBT rights. It started when two students celebrated “Twin Day” by wearing shirts that read “Lesbian 1” and “Lesbian 2.” After their shirts were censored, a group of students responded with shirts that read “I Support… [Rainbow] Express Yourself” and “Straight but Supportive,” and they too were forced to remove their shirts for being too “political.”
It seems there is no shortage in the creative ways students might use their clothing to help create visibility and acceptance for the LGBT community. As Popour told Yahoo Parenting, “I’m proud of who I am and I’m not going to hide it. If my family accepts it, why should I be ashamed to show everyone else that I’m a lesbian?”
Update:
U.S News and World Report reports that the school has overturned Popour’s suspension. According to Spartanburg School District 2 spokeswoman Rhonda Henderson, “The dress code disciplinary decision you inquired about was overturned when administration realized that although the shirt was offensive and distracting to some adults in the building, the students were paying it little attention.”