The Firearms Policy Coalition has filed an opening brief in the appeals phase of an FPC-backed lawsuit challenging a Michigan Public School’s ban on gun-related speech.
The case involves a third-grade Michigan girl who, on the school’s “hat day,” was told she couldn’t wear a hat bearing the text “Come and Take It,” along with an image of an AR-15 rifle. In the case C.S. v. McCrumb, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan ruled that the school district was within its bounds in banning the hat and that the decision “was justified by undisputed evidence in the record and therefore does not violate the First Amendment.”
FPC has appealed the ruling to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals and recently filed its opening brief on the case.
“[Plaintiff’s] speech, which expressed her views about constitutionally protected rights, is protected by the First Amendment: Elementary-school students have the right to speak in school unless their speech falls within one of the narrow exceptions to protection (which are not applicable here) or unless their speech can be reasonably forecast to cause substantial disruption,” the brief argues. “And on this record, no such forecast is possible.”
Brandon Combs, FPC president, said the lower court’s decision was wrong and hopes the appeal will prove that to be so.
“Public schools may not violate the First Amendment rights of their students because they don’t like the Second Amendment and protected weapons like America’s Rifle, the AR-15,” Combs said in a release announcing the appeal. “The Sixth Circuit should remind school administrators that the Constitution’s protections apply even to speech they disfavor about rights they dislike.”
Of course, public schools aren’t the only entities barring the wearing of hats they find politically offensive. On September 15, an Arizona Cardinals season ticket holder for the past 34 years was forced to throw her Make America Great Again (MAGA) hat in the trash before she could enter the stadium.
Longtime fan Susan Rosener and her husband were passing through the security checkpoint for the season opener when a female member of the security staff shouted at her concerning her hat, “You can’t bring that in here.”
“In retrospect, I wish I would have stood my ground a little bit, ” Susan Rosener told 12 News after the incident. “But I wasn’t sure what the repercussions would be, and my husband would kill me if I did something with the season tickets or that jeopardizes them somehow.”
The Arizona Cardinals and State Farm Stadium have a rule against clothing items they deem “obscene or indecent in a public setting” or “any item deemed inappropriate or hazardous by stadium security.”
The team later released a statement saying, “In an isolated incident at Sunday’s game, a stadium security member misunderstood a policy on prohibited items.”
The statement continued: “Moving forward we will work to provide clarity to all stadium personnel in these situation. We have also reached out to the individual involved to communicate that their experience was not consistent with our policies and practices and to apologize for that.”
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