With the world today being arguably the most divided it has been in a long time, many stories arise with different cases of political discrimination. Many stories of political discrimination go hand in hand with cases of violating First Amendment rights.
One of these cases that has stuck out the most to me happened last year to an 18-year-old Oregon high school student. In January of 2018 Addison Barnes, a now-graduated student from Liberty High School, was asked to cover up a "Donald J. Trump Border Wall Construction Co.'' that he wore to school. At the time he abided to this request, but later realized that he was free to express himself how he wanted. Later in the year he decided to wear a “Pro-Trump” shirt which he refused to cover up when asked. After being suspended and sent home, Barnes woke up to realize that this was a violation of his First Amendment rights.
Barnes took this case to the Supreme Court where he sued the school, his Principal Greg Timmons, and the Hillsboro School District. After winning the case, Barnes released a statement saying “Everyone knows that if a student wears an anti-Trump shirt to school, the teachers won't think twice about it. But when I wore a pro-Trump shirt, I got suspended. That's not right." No matter your political affiliation, I think most can agree that self expression is important in society and a t-shirt is no reason to suspend a high school student, especially when it wasn’t legally justified.
This court case showed many parallels to Tinker vs. Des Moines, which was cited in Barnes’s court complaint. In this court case he Supreme Court sided with students who had been suspended after wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War. Both instances took away the students’ abilities to practice their First Amendment right which is so necessary during the high school stage of life.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2018/07/25/a-student-was-suspended-for-wearing-a-border-wall-shirt-it-cost-the-district-25000-and-an-apology/?utm_term=.5055179e56ae
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