-
Zach wore the t-shirt on a school field trip
A parent who was at the trip noticed the shirt and made an objection to a teacher. -
Zachary Guiles, a 13-year-old student at Williamstown Middle High School in Vermont.
He wore a T-shirt to school that criticized President Bush as a chicken-hawk president, and a former alcohol and cocaine abuser. To make its point, the shirt displayed images of drugs and alcohol. -
He wore the T-shirt on average once a week for two months.
The shirt did not cause any fights, but only discussions among students at school. -
The teacher determined that the t-shirt violated the school dress code
The teacher gave Zach three options: turn the shirt inside-out; tape over the images of the drugs and alcohol and the word "cocaine"; or change shirts. -
His father went to school to protect Zach’s rights
The next day Zach wore the shirt, yet this time he covered the drug images with duct tape. -
Trial in Burlington; Guiles v. Marineau
Zachary sued the school and the school district for violating his First Amendment rights. The judge ruled that Guiles’ freedom of speech rights protected the written words on the t-shirt, but not the pictures.