Student is Allowed to Wear Anti-Bush Shirt to School

An appeals court yesterday ruled in favor of a student who had been banned from wearing an anti-Bush t-shirt to school in Vermont, News.com.au reports.

Guiles, who as a seventh grader in 2004 wore the T-shirt to Williamstown Middle High School in Vermont once a week for two months after purchasing it at an anti-war rally, appealed the case after a lower court ruled in favour of the school.

The school argued the images were offensive because they undermined the school's anti-drug message.

The T-shirt read "George W Bush" and "Chicken-Hawk-In-Chief" with a picture of the president's face wearing a helmet superimposed on the body of a chicken.

The back of the T-shirt showed lines of cocaine, a martini glass and smaller print that accused Bush of being a "Crook", "Cocaine Addict", AWOL", "Draft Dodger" and "Lying Drunk Driver".

The court ruled that, while it used inflammatory images and language, it was not patently offensive.

What kills me is that the school said that it violated their anti-drug policy. The shirt wasn't condoning or uplifting drug use. It was actually disdaining it, much like the D.A.R.E. posters we had lining the halls of our school. I'm glad that good sense won out.