The Supreme Court has agreed to take up a case examining whether public schools can ban students from wearing “Let’s Go Brandon!” clothing by classifying the phrase as vulgar, setting up a major First Amendment ruling on political speech in schools.
The case, D.A. v. Tri-County Area Schools, stems from a Michigan school district where an assistant principal and a teacher ordered students to remove sweatshirts bearing the slogan. Other students at the same school were permitted to wear gay-pride-themed hoodies.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld the ban in a 2-1 decision, ruling that school officials could prohibit the phrase under a “vulgarity exception” to student speech rights because the phrase was allegedly equivalent to an expletive targeting President Biden.
Judge John Bush filed a sharp dissent, arguing the majority got it wrong. “The speech here — ‘Let’s Go Brandon!’ — is neither vulgar nor profane on its face, and therefore does not fall into the Fraser exception,” Bush wrote. “To the contrary, the phrase is purely political speech. It criticizes a political official — the type of expression that sits ‘at the core of what the First Amendment is designed to protect.'”
Bush noted the phrase had never been bleeped on television or radio and does not contain any of the “seven words you can never say on television.” Members of Congress have used the phrase on the House floor. Even former President Biden himself once repeated it.
The phrase originated in October 2021 after NASCAR driver Brandon Brown won a race at Talladega Superspeedway. As NBC reporter Kelli Stavast interviewed Brown on the track, the crowd chanted “[Explicit] Joe Biden.” Stavast declared on live television that fans were yelling “Let’s go, Brandon!” The phrase immediately took off as a coded political rallying cry against the Biden administration and media bias.
The district dress code prohibited clothing with “messages or illustrations that are lewd, indecent, vulgar, or profane.” School officials determined “Let’s Go Brandon!” fell under that prohibition, even though the phrase substitutes clean words in place of a profanity.
The Supreme Court’s decision to grant certiorari signals the justices view the case as raising unresolved questions about how far school administrators can reach to suppress student political expression. A ruling is expected before the end of the current term.
