Victory for Free Expression

A federal judge has ruled that a Woodbury High School student's constitutional rights were violated last year when school officials told him to remove a sweatshirt with the words "Straight Pride" written on it.

U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank ruled that the school's dress code was unconstitutional when applied to the student, Elliott Chambers. Though Frank noted that there are circumstances when a school can prohibit student expression ordinarily protected by the U.S. Constitution, he said the school failed to demonstrate that Chambers' sweatshirt could disrupt school activities.

Chambers and his family, as plaintiffs, and officials from the South Washington County School District, as defendants, agreed to the ruling.

Chambers, currently a junior at Woodbury High, wore the sweatshirt to school Jan. 16, 2001, as an expression of "preference for the traditional and wholesome way to approach sex ... which is God's plan," his mother, Lana Chambers, said at the time. She also said it was an effort to counteract what she felt to be the school's active promotion of a "homosexual agenda."

Principal Dana Babbitt told Chambers that he could not wear the sweatshirt because it violated the school's dress code.

The teen and his parents sued the district, and Frank issued a preliminary injunction last May saying that the school had to allow Chambers to wear the shirt.