The Supreme Court on Monday declined to review a dispute over a Michigan school district's decision to prohibit students from wearing clothing bearing the conservative slogan "Let's Go Brandon," a phrase used to mock former President Biden.
The justices turned away an appeal from two brothers, identified as D.A. and X.A., who argued that the school's ban violated their First Amendment rights. At the time, the brothers were in sixth and eighth grade in the Tri County Schools district, located about 30 miles north of Grand Rapids. They have since moved on to the district's high school.
Their mother filed a lawsuit in 2023 on their behalf, claiming that the slogan is protected political speech and that school officials overstepped by ordering the boys to remove sweatshirts bearing the phrase. The school maintained that the slogan violates its policy against profanity, interpreting it as a euphemism for an obscenity directed at Biden.
A federal district judge sided with the school district, and a divided panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision. In its ruling, the appeals court majority wrote: "In the schoolhouse, vulgarity trumps politics. And the protection for political speech doesn't give a student carte blanche to use vulgarity at school — even when that vulgarity is cloaked in innuendo or euphemism."
In their petition to the high court, the students' lawyers argued that the appeals court misapplied the 1986 Supreme Court precedent in Bethel School District v. Fraser, which allows schools to restrict lewd or vulgar speech. They pointed to a dissent from 6th Circuit Judge John Bush, who warned that the majority's reasoning "essentially gives school administrators boundless discretion" to censor political expression.
"The Sixth Circuit's decision deepens confusion and disagreement in the lower courts on an issue affecting tens of millions of public school students: What political apparel does the First Amendment protect at school?" the students' lawyers wrote.
The school district countered that the slogan's meaning as a vulgar jab at Biden cannot be ignored. Its lawyers argued that Fraser permits schools to restrict speech that is vulgar, profane, or lewd, even when disguised as euphemism. "A contrary rule would allow vulgar, lewd, and profane codewords to flood classrooms and would prevent schools from teaching students how to engage in political discussions with civility," they wrote.
The phrase "Let's Go Brandon" emerged from a 2021 NASCAR broadcast, when a reporter mistakenly described the crowd's anti-Biden chant as "Let's go Brandon." The clip quickly became a viral conservative rallying cry.
The Supreme Court has previously declined to take up similar school free speech cases. Last term, it refused to review a Massachusetts case involving a student barred from wearing a "There are only two genders" shirt. The Court's decision not to hear the Michigan case leaves the lower court ruling intact, and it is the latest in a series of high court actions on contentious First Amendment issues as it navigates a docket packed with politically charged disputes.
