Many school kids are wearing “I Love Boobies” bracelets in memory of a relative who has died of cancer, or in support of a cancer survivor in their family. Why isn’t more being done to support these students?

Schools are continuing to try to ban the controversial “I Love Boobies” bracelets, even after a federal court in Pennsylvania ruled that such bracelets were protected by the first amendment. How can they do that? Well, what we find in the Pennsylvania court’s 40-page opinion is that the judge ruled that the particular school district in question failed to prove a “well-founded expectation of material and substantial disruption from wearing these bracelets….” So other school districts are apparently spending their limited financial resources on lawyers they hope will make a better case for them. Case in point, the Watertown School District of Massachusetts, which banned the bracelets recently and will soon face a court challenge. Since I first blogged about the “Boobies” bracelets last October, I have received a handful of emails every month from students looking to fight their schools. My advice is as follows.

Step one : Read your student handbook for appeal procedures on any disciplinary action you receive (e.g. detention or suspension).

: Read your student handbook for appeal procedures on any disciplinary action you receive (e.g. detention or suspension). Step two : Write the appeal letter and deliver it. (Most appeal procedures first require a hearing in front of the principal, and then the school board.)

: Write the appeal letter and deliver it. (Most appeal procedures first require a hearing in front of the principal, and then the school board.) Step three : Contact the media. Look up newspapers and local T.V. stations online, and email them. Many schools will back down from the embarrassment of such a ban.

: Contact the media. Look up newspapers and local T.V. stations online, and email them. Many schools will back down from the embarrassment of such a ban. Step four: If that doesn’t work, call your local chapter of the ACLU.

As a lawyer who has actually represented school districts before, my advice to schools is: “Give it up!” You school districts won’t win, even if you take the case to the Supreme Court! Here is why the schools won’t win on this: the bracelets will never be shown to be sufficiently “disruptive” to justify a ban, particularly now that the bracelets are so commonplace. While at first the bracelets may have led to snickers, now they are so common as to be boring. And school districts are forgetting the fundamental rule of American popular culture. First something is trendy, then it goes mainstream, then it becomes universally hated. By the time your lawyers finish proof-reading their legal briefs, the “I Love Boobies!” bracelets will be cast aside for another trend.

For prior blog posts on other First Amendment issues in school, check out here, here, and here.