U.S. students too young to vote are increasingly wearing their opinions on their sleeves, making their voices heard with political clothing as they contend with an increasingly polarized society.
At the Iowa Governor's Scholar Program ceremony on April 30, a transgender student accepted an award from Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds wearing a tie colored like the transgender flag and pins that said "Trans Rights Are Human Rights" and "She Her."
After shaking hands with Reynolds, the student yelled, "Trans rights are human rights," in protest of Iowa's recently implemented ban against gender-transition care for minors, which the governor had pushed for, the Des Moines Register reported.
"Education is about preparing our students for their future careers and to be successful in the world around us, and part of that foundation is civic engagement," Reynolds said after the incident. "While we may disagree about what is best for our schools, no student should be afraid to express his or her opinion, even when it comes to their governor."
While American students have a long history of using clothing to express their political opinions, the most famous example resulted in the 1969 U.S. Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District. In that case, the Iowa students, who were all younger than 16, sued after their school would not allow them to wear armbands in protest of the Vietnam War.
The Supreme Court found in favor of the students and the so-called Tinker test has been used ever since to determine if clothing poses a "substantial disruption" for the school that needs to be quelled.
Vera Eidelman, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberty Union's Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, told The Hill that courts have since gone in "different directions" and taken "different approaches" when looking at political clothing in schools.
"This has come up not infrequently with regard to shirts that have clearly racist messages, and some of the things that schools will look to is, 'Have there been fights related to this before? Have there been disruptions of classrooms? What's the history of this kind of speech and, let's say, racial or homophobic or transphobic tensions in the community more broadly?'" she said.
Texas high school senior Sohali Vaddula, who serves as the national communications director for the High School Democrats of America, said several of her classmates started sporting pro-abortion shirts after Roe v. Wade was overturned last June.
"I think it's really important for us to be able to wear political clothing, because it's a way for us to express what we feel and it's our way of sort of putting pressure on — whether it be legislators, policymakers or people in power, to do what fits our needs and what's best for us," Vaddula told The Hill.
Two middle schoolers in Michigan filed a lawsuit against their school district late last month after being told to take off their "Let's Go Brandon" gear.
"Whether it's a Biden sticker, 'Let's Go Brandon' sweatshirt, or gay pride T-shirt, schools can't pick and choose which political beliefs students can express," the students' lawyer Conor Fitzpatrick told The Hill.
"A public school district cannot censor speech just because it might cause someone to think about a swear word," he added.