Court upholds school's ban of 'Let's Go Brandon' clothing in free speech dispute

On Tuesday, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court's ruling that a Michigan school district did not violate two students' rights when the administration forced them to remove clothing with the words "Let's Go Brandon."

The case involved two brothers who wore sweatshirts with the phrase to school in 2022. The students, both then of middle-school age, were asked to remove the clothing "since the phrase 'means the F-word,'" the opinion related, quoting assistant principal of Tri County Middle School Andrew Buikema.

'It contains no sexual content, no graphic imagery, and no actual profanity.'

Specifically, the opinion affirmed the district court's understanding that the school "reasonably understood the slogan 'Let's Go Brandon' to be vulgar."

The court decision explained in detail the provenance of the well-known expression, which originates from a 2021 NASCAR event in Alabama.

RELATED: 'Let's go, lawsuit': Students sue after school forces them to remove 'Let's Go Brandon' sweatshirts

Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

In a video of the NASCAR event, the crowd can be heard chanting, "F**k Joe Biden," but a reporter misreports the chant during her interview with professional race car driver Brandon Brown. She says the crowd is chanting, "Let's go, Brandon."

The misreported phrase quickly became popular as an outlet for criticism of then-President Joe Biden.

The opinion from the appeals court stated that the reporter either misheard the chant or was "simply trying to put a fig leaf over the chant's vulgarity."

"The school administrators reasonably interpreted the 'Let’s Go Brandon' slogan as being vulgar speech that 'a school may categorically prohibit' despite its political message. Requesting that students remove clothing with that slogan didn't violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments," the opinion of the court concluded.

The court split two to one in the decision. Judge John Bush dissented from the opinion of Judges John Nalbandian and Karen Nelson Moore.

Bush wrote in his dissent that wearing clothing with political messaging is "the first point of entry to civic engagement." The school's intervention thus "quickly ended" the boys' "civic engagement."

Getting to the core of the issue, Bush added, "The phrase at issue here is a euphemism for political criticism. It contains no sexual content, no graphic imagery, and no actual profanity. To the extent that it implies an offensive phrase, it does so obliquely — by design."

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