Officials in Morgan Hill are concerned about protesters converging at Live Oak High School on Cinco de Mayo, after a court upheld the school’s decision to discipline students wearing American flag t-shirts. Len Ramirez reports. (4/28/14)

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday left intact an appeals court ruling that school officials in California did not violate the free speech rights of students by demanding they remove T-shirts bearing images of the U.S. flag at an event celebrating the Mexican holiday of Cinco de Mayo.

The court declined to hear an appeal filed by three students at Live Oak High School in the town of Morgan Hill, south of San Francisco. School staff at the May 5, 2010, event told several students their clothing could cause an incident. Two chose to leave for home after refusing to turn their shirts inside out.

The school had been experiencing gang-related tensions and racially charged altercations between white and Hispanic students at the time. School officials said they feared the imposition of American patriotic imagery by some students at an event where other students were celebrating their pride in their Mexican heritage would incite fights between the two groups.

Lawyers for the students said that the fear that the T-shirts would offend others did not trump free speech rights because the act of wearing the shirts did not rise to the level of incitement to violence.

Three of the affected students - Daniel Galli, Matt Dariano, and Dominic Maciel - were involved in the lawsuit, which was filed on their behalf by their parents.

In the February 2014 ruling, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said officials did not violate the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech. School officials acted out of legitimate concerns of violence when they sent a handful of students home for refusing to change their American flag-embellished apparel, the court said.

The case is Dariano v. Morgan Hill Unified School District, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 14-720.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)