A high-school student in Portsmouth, RI is fighting tooth and nail with his high-school administration for the right to dress in chain mail and hold a sword in his yearbook photo. The school has resorted to dirty tricks to keep him out of the yearbook — including manufacturing fake photo deadlines — and the student has attracted the assistance of the ACLU in fighting for his right to display his inner geek.
More seriously, the issue is that the principal is interpreting the school's zero-tolerance weapons policy as including a prohibition on holding a prop sword in a yearbook pic. The ACLU is interested in the case as an investigation of the harmful effects that zero-tolerance policies have on free expression.
First, school officials have admitted that last Monday was not the deadline for submitting yearbook photos. The deadline for publishing the yearbook is actually February 28, two months from now. In light of this new deadline, the ACLU has agreed to withdraw its motion for a temporary restraining order prohibiting the school from printing the yearbook without Agin's picture.
(via McDaid)
(Photo from an East Bay RI article)
