The American Civil Liberties Union said it sued a Pennsylvania school district on Monday for forbidding two female students from wearing anti-breast cancer bracelets that say "I Love Boobies!"



The ACLU said the Easton Area School District violated the girls' right to free speech by banning the bracelets that, using the heart symbol in place of "love," read, "I (Heart) Boobies! (Keep A Breast)."



The civil rights group asked a US District Court judge for an emergency injunction against the ban and to lift punishments imposed on the girls.



Kayla Martinez and Brianna Hawk, seventh- and eighth-graders at Easton Area Middle School, wore the rubber bracelets at the school's breast cancer awareness day on Oct. 28, three days after the school had banned the bracelets, the ACLU said in a statement.



Mary Catherine Roper, an attorney for the ACLU of Pennsylvania, said the girls wore the bracelets because they wanted to raise awareness of a disease that had affected people close to both of them.



"Schools have some leeway to limit what students say in school but that should not extend to banning expression about something as important as breast cancer," Roper said in a news release.



School district officials did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment.