he principal's office for creating a disturbance. The principal there told them that they were to remove their buttons (15-16).In response, approximately 150 students wore the buttons to school the following Monday, distributing similar buttons freely and also pinning them on students who had not requested one (16).This activity created a state of confusion, disrupted class instruction and resulted in a general breakdown of orderly discipline, causing the principal to assemble the students in the cafeteria and inform them that they were forbidden to wear the buttons at school (17). At the assembly and also during conferences with the students immediately thereafter, several students conducted themselves discourteously and displayed an attitude of hostility.Over 200 students returned to school wearing the buttons the next day and were informed that refusal to remove the buttons would result in suspension (17). The following day, February 3, students wearing the buttons were immediately sent home, but many went into classrooms to petition other students before leaving. Disturbances and distributions continued throughout the week, and the number of suspended students eventually reached 300. Parents of the children met with the Principal and Superintendent, but those students who remained at home after 20 days were suspended for the rest of the school year (18).On May 17, the district judge denied a request for an injunction to compel the school board to admit the students and allow them to wear the buttons as long as no disturbance was caused (20). The case reached the Fifth Circuit Court on appeal. The Circuit Court overturned a lower court's decision to uphold a school regulation prohibiting the wearing of buttons, finding the regulation "an infringement upon students' protected right of free expression" (21). However, the court had clear-cut evidence that the wearing and distribution of buttons was disruptive and potentially discourteou...
