{"id":4024,"date":"2026-08-01T07:36:30","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T07:36:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usmovingexpertss.com\/?p=4024"},"modified":"2026-08-01T07:36:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T07:36:30","slug":"is-lets-go-brandon-lewd-students-ask-supreme-court-to-decide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usmovingexpertss.com\/?p=4024","title":{"rendered":"Is ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ lewd? Students ask Supreme Court to decide"},"content":{"rendered":"
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WASHINGTON \u2212 When two Michigan students wore “Let’s Go Brandon” sweatshirts to middle school in 2022, they knew what the phrase \u2013 which had gone viral as a euphemism for a vulgar criticism of President Joe Biden \u2212 stood for.<\/p>\n

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So did the school officials in the rural community of Howard City who told the brothers to change, citing rules prohibiting clothing with indecent messages.<\/p>\n

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When the students and their mother sued, lower courts said their constitutional free-speech rights were not violated.<\/p>\n

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Now the family hopes the Supreme Court will take their case and rule that schools can’t censor political messages that are not “plainly profane or lewd.”<\/p>\n

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A ‘staple of political discourse’<\/p>\n

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“‘Let’s Go Brandon’ is not profane. It is not lewd. It is not a sexual double entendre,” lawyers for the students wrote in their appeal. “It is a staple of political discourse and debate over the last four years used everywhere from the floor of Congress to television roundtables and the campaign trail.”<\/p>\n

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Critics of Biden adopted the slogan after a reporter mischaracterized a profane phrase hostile to Biden that was shouted by fans at a NASCAR race in 2021.<\/p>\n

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The brothers suing Tri County Area Schools in western Michigan received sweatshirts emblazoned with the phrase as a Christmas present from their mother that year.<\/p>\n

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The students \u2013 then in the sixth and eighth grades and identified in the lawsuit only by their initials \u2212 said in court filings they wore the sweatshirts to school to “silently express disapproval of President Biden.”<\/p>\n

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But the school’s dress code prohibits messages that are lewd, indecent, vulgar or profane.<\/p>\n

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An appeals court ruled in 2025 that school officials had reasonably determined the message was vulgar based on its “commonly understood meaning.”<\/p>\n

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Supreme Court recently turned down other student speech cases<\/p>\n

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The Supreme Court has not shown an appetite in recent months for reviewing how schools are policing clothing with political messages.<\/p>\n

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In June, the court rejected an appeal from a Michigan student who was not allowed to wear \u2212 for her school’s “Great Kindness Challenge” \u2212 a hat featuring an image of an AR-style rifle and the phrase “come and take it.”<\/p>\n

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The court likewise passed up a chance last year to decide whether a Massachusetts school erred by banning a T-shirt saying, “There are only two genders.”<\/p>\n

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Those cases turned on a landmark 1969 decision protecting students’ First Amendment rights as long as the speech isn’t too disruptive. <\/p>\n

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The “Let’s Go Brandon” lawsuit tests a 1986 ruling that schools can prohibit speech that conveys an obscene or vulgar message. In that case, the Supreme Court said a school could discipline a student who used an elaborate sexual metaphor when nominating a classmate for student office during a school assembly.<\/p>\n

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That ruling put the thumb on the scale in favor of school administrators’ judgment calls, according to the appeals court judges who backed Tri County Area Schools in the dispute over the sweatshirt.<\/p>\n

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“And here the uncontroverted origin of the slogan shows a plainly vulgar meaning,” wrote Judge John Nalbandian, who was appointed to the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals by President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

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Is ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ the equivalent of ‘Where’s the Beef’?<\/p>\n

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But Judge John K. Bush, who was also appointed by Trump, disagreed, saying his two colleagues who ruled for the school were being too deferential to administrators when it comes to political speech.<\/p>\n

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Bush said “Let’s Go Brandon” became a “national inside joke” similar to how Wendy’s 1984 ad slogan “Where’s the Beef?” was co-opted to by Vice President Walter Mondale to suggest a political opponent, Gary Hart, lacked substance.<\/p>\n

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“`Let’s Go Brandon!'” just cheekily expressed criticism of a president’s leadership capabilities,” Bush wrote in his dissent.<\/p>\n

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He said it was up to the Supreme Court to “ultimately clarify, and ideally limit,” the court’s 1986 ruling about suggestive speech at school.<\/p>\n

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The justices could announce whether they will hear the case \u2212 which is backed by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE \u2212 when they return from their summer recess.<\/p>\n

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Deciding what’s offensive can become ‘head-spinning’<\/p>\n

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Lawyers for Tri County Area Schools encouraged the justices not to reopen that can of worms, warning that trying to figure out where to draw the line becomes “head-spinning.”<\/p>\n

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“The number of lewd and vulgar codewords is shockingly expansive and ever-changing,” wrote Lisa Blatt, the experienced Supreme Court warrior the school hired to fight the appeal, showing how seriously they’re taking the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

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Blatt filled her filings with so many examples \u2013 more than 200 \u2212 of the kinds of phrases that judges would have to rule on that she apologized “for the use of offensive language and images.”<\/p>\n

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“Almost all lewd speech comes in sanitized code, innuendo, and double meaning,” she wrote. “Take the number 69. Although on its face it is just a number innocently falling between 68 and 70, many understand it to refer to a sexual position.”<\/p>\n

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And what if a student wants to wear a shirt saying, “I don’t know who Brandon is but duck Trump”?<\/p>\n

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The fact that some of the school bans being challenged in court are difficult cases is not a sign that the rules governing speech at school are unclear, she said. Instead, Blatt wrote, they’re a “product of the entrepreneurial creativity of America’s schoolchildren to invent new ways of conveying profane and lewd messages.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Is ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ lewd? Students ask Supreme Court to decide<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

Reporting by Maureen Groppe, USA TODAY \/ USA TODAY<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Copyright Reuters or USA Today Network via Reuters Connect<\/i><\/p>\n

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