The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied certiorari to a student whose political speech was silenced by his high school in Palmer v. Waxahachie Independent School District (WISD).

Kelly Shackelford, Chief Counsel of Liberty Legal Institute, called today's denial a “punch in the gut to freedom.” For 40 years, she says, students have had the right to share their political and religious ideas with one another in a respectful, non-disruptive way.

“If these freedoms are removed and students are not allowed to respectfully and non-disruptively express their opinion, then we have to ask what kind of citizens and country we are trying to create,” Shackelford says. “There is a great need for the Supreme Court to step in and corral these lower courts before it is too late.  Millions of students are being impacted.”

In 2008, then-sophomore Paul “Pete” Palmer wore a non-disruptive shirt to school respectfully supporting his favorite political candidate but was told to remove the shirt by WISD administrators, since it was not “approved” by the school. Palmer was also banned from wearing a shirt with the words of the First Amendment, since it was also not approved.

For four decades, the standard for student speech protection, established by the landmark case of Tinker v. Des Moines, has been that students have a right to respectful speech as long as they are not disruptive, lewd, or profane. The school had argued for a new standard for student speech which gives schools wider authority to ban student expression. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit agreed with the school and issued an opinion changing from the Tinker standard to the newer approach allowing much more speech suppression while at school.

“WISD's refusal to allow this young man to exercise his right to free speech sends a message to all our young people that they should not have an opinion on important issues like religion and politics,” says lead attorney Allyson Ho of Baker Botts, L.L.P.