Free speech battle brewing over students' anatomical buttons

Associated Press


WINONA, Minn. - High school students here are being admonished for wearing buttons inspired by the sometimes raunchy off-Broadway hit "The Vagina Monologues" and have been threatened with expulsion if they wear risque T-shirts inspired by the show.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota is offering to help students fight any consequences in what's become a battle between free speech and school conduct policies.

The trouble started last month when student Carrie Rethlefsen saw Eve Ensler's play about female sexuality and sexual violence against women, which led the teen and fellow student Emily Nixon, 17, to start wearing "I (heart) My Vagina" buttons.

Despite the threats of serious punishment, Rethlefsen has continued to wear her button to raise awareness about women's issues. As a show of support, more than 100 students have ordered T-shirts bearing "I (heart) My Vagina" for girls and "I Support Your Vagina" for boys.

"We can't really find out what is inappropriate about it," Rethlefsen, 18, told the Star Tribune of Minneapolis. "I don't think banning things like that is appropriate."

Principal Nancy Wondrasch said some in school find the buttons offensive.

"We support free speech," she said. "But when it does infringe on other people's rights and our school policies, then we need to take a look at that."

Rethlefsen has had a string of visits with teachers, counselors, an assistant principal and the principal. A teacher has barred her from one classroom as long as she wears the button.

Wondrasch said she has offered the girls a forum to talk about women's rights and violence against women by letting them set up a table at school. But that is contingent on school officials getting an advance look at information provided, Rethlefsen said.

Minnesota ACLU leader Charles Samuelson said he thinks the school leaders might be curtailing the girls' free speech rights. While he agrees school officials can limit speech considered detrimental or dangerous, he points to a 1969 Supreme Court ruling. In that school First Amendment case, justices ruled administrators' fear about how others might react is not enough to squelch rights.

"Free speech is a messy thing," Samuelson said. "People need to understand that opinions that they are not comfortable with, or even opinions they disagree with, need to be allowed."

The girls have not been in trouble before. In fact, they're top students. Rethlefsen, for example, has been invited to a prestigious science and engineering fair for the fourth year in a row. Nixon joked that the assistant principal didn't recognize her when Nixon was called in over the button.

Rethlefsen and Nixon have ordered the T-shirts - paid for with money collected from friends and supporters - and plan to wear them next week.

More than 100 students are expected to wear the shirts, Nixon said.

"They told us that if a single person showed up wearing them, we're going to get expelled," she said. "People are going to wear them anyway."

School officials won't comment on discipline the students might face.

Ann Rethlefsen, Carrie's mother, is a bit uneasy.

"She's a very independent young lady," Ann Rethlefsen said, adding that she understands the school's point. "We just want to make sure she graduates."

Nixon, too, admits to being nervous about what lies ahead, but she's not ready to back down. "We're not trying to offend anyone," Nixon said. "But I want people to think for themselves and come up with their own conclusions."

The same play attracted controversy in February when the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth put restrictions on a student production of the show. The administration stipulated that the cast couldn't advertise the production off campus, or sell tickets, though they could accept donations.

A college spokesman said at the time that the play's views of human sexuality were not in harmony with the Roman Catholic church's teachings

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is she fighting for free speech or for women's rights?....the button alone doesn't do a whole lot in educating people, and it just seems to me that a lot of these kids might just be jumping on the band wagon and "revolting against the system" because they think it's cool, and chances are they won't be punished very drastically....if you're really concerned about spreading awareness about women's rights, take the offere of setting up a booth and opening dialogue in the school....i'm gonna go out on a limb, but i bet a lot of the kids buying these t-shirts are doing so only because it has the word "vagina" on it....would there be as much support if the t-shirts only had something like a ribbon or the logo of a local women's shelter on it?

If it's high school, then half of those kids, if not more, just think it's funny to wear something with the word "vagina" on it.

This very well could be their only chance to 'stick it to the man'. I say more power to them, and their vaginas. tehee

the irony is, most people are only gonna open this thread because it has the word vagina in the title....

Whenever anything like this happens, the high school administrators are so worried about shutting it down that they forget what a valuable learning experience it could be for the kids. They just try to shut 'em up and make it go away. Sad.

I agree with almost all of this. From my point of view, this is all a big waste of time and energy. Time that could be used prodictively actually learning about women's rights in a more open way, not to mention other subjects and extra-curricular stuff.

The limits of free speech have been tried and tested a billion times... they will be tried and tested another billion times. In the meanwhile, why don't schools and parents try to come to a sensible conclusion whereby the buttons are banned because any practical purpose they might serve is outweighed by the grief it is causing, and students actually given the forum to discuss the issues they want to discuss with less direct regulation by the school? Maybe a committee with a mixture of parents and teachers that both students and school admins will find acceptable?

I dunno... it all seems a bit melodramatic and pointless to me.

No one is arguing that wearing these buttons or t-shirts will do much to educate the students concerning women's rights, the students simply claim their right to express themselves.

Women's rights may not be gaining much with this action but student's awareness that free speech is a fundamental human right of a free society will be much more evident and that sometimes other people need to be reminded of that.

Then let me pose a question to you because most people only imply support offreedom of speech. What if she were to:

Wear an "I heart abortions" button or "I heart niggers" tshirt?

When she wears a button saying "I heart my vagina" I don't think she's offending anyone, only those who are too prude to be offended by reading a part of a women's anatomy, whereas if she was to wear a "I heart niggers" she would indeed be offending black people by using a clearly offensive and racist word. As to the "I heart abortions" button, I don't think those who advocate women's freedom of choice would never choose such a slogan because no one loves abortions, it is sometimes a necessary option that traumatizes the women who make them.

But, in my opinion, this is really a question of prudishness, if she was wearing a t-shirt with no sexual conotation we wouldn't be having this conversation.

we do have a winner here now

In both cases, ACLU has stepped up to defend them. I can't find a link to the abortion case, but here's one about hate speech on college campuses: http://www.aclu.org/StudentsRights/Stud ... 9004&c=159

I think the original purpose of the button is to make people ask questions about women's rights. It became about free speech when the girls were told not to wear them. All the other kids wearing the shirts is supposed to be a show of support for those girls' rights. If some kids wear them just to wear a "vagina" shirt or fuck the principle, so be it, you won't be able to know who's doing that and who's not.

Actually, reading this, you might not get away with "nigger," but you could wear a shirt that says, "I hate black people."

*Hangs head in shame*

I think the bigger point we are missing here is that isn't wearing these buttons a bit redundant? I mean who doesn't love vagina?




On a more serious note, if these uppity broads ( ) are wanting to raise awareness of women's issues and feminism then why are they putting all the focus on their reproductive organs? I understand that it is a part of what defines their womanhood, but it is just that: a part.

Look up the Vagina Monologues on the web. I'd give a link, but I'm not 100% on my employers opinion of surfing their website at work. But the philosophy of the show is that women are hurt by society's general disgust with the vagina. We love the dick. We talk about the dick. We build lots of things that look like dick. A lot of our slang has to do with using our dick. The theory here is that inserting discussion of the vagina into our lives will eliminate the shame some women feel about their vaginas.

That's the most I've used the words "dick" and "vagina" outside of a cybersex environment.

When Eve Ensler wrote the play she was saying that "Vagina" is a word that people avoid pronouncing, this part of the woman's anatomy is no different from any other part, we can talk about it, it isn't something obscure, so this play intended not only to talk about women's rights but also to break the myth of the word "Vagina".

As long as you're not disrupting the learning process, I could care less what you wear in a classroom.

and a gal wearing a pin that says, i love my vagina, has no chance of doing that huh

What, are the boys going to be just as mollified by such a pin as they would an actual vagina?