Students forced to remove ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ sweatshirts seek Supreme Court review

At issue: Can schools ban sanitized political expression just because someone considers it profane?

SAND LAKE, Mich., March 26, 2026 – A pair of students who were forced to remove sweatshirts emblazoned with the anti-Biden slogan “Let’s Go Brandon” are appealing their case to the Supreme Court in a test of free speech rights in public schools.

The Michigan students, who are represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, are claiming that their school district violated their First Amendment rights.

“Our argument is simple: Students have the right to express their political views in school,” said FIRE Supervising Senior Attorney Conor Fitzpatrick. “School administrators should encourage students to share their beliefs as engaged citizens, not censor them the moment someone finds their message offensive.”

In February 2022, two Tri County Middle School students wore sweatshirts to school with the phrase “Let’s Go Brandon,” a political slogan critical of then-President Joe Biden with origins in a profane chant. Even though the political slogan is widely used — multiple members of Congress used it during floor speeches — an assistant principal and a teacher ordered the boys to remove the sweatshirts. 

The school district relied on a policy that prohibits “profane” clothing — but the sweatshirts intentionally avoided using profane language, and asking the students to remove them was a violation of their First Amendment rights.

The Supreme Court has already made it clear that high school students have First Amendment rights. The students’ challenge evokes the 1969 Supreme Court decision in Tinker v. Des Moines, in which the Court affirmed public school students’ First Amendment right to wear black armbands in school to protest the Vietnam War. The Court stressed that students disagreeing with each other is not only “an inevitable part of the process of attending school; it is also an important part of the educational process.” 

After FIRE’s lawsuit, the district court and a divided (2-1) federal appeals court held that the phrase “Let’s Go Brandon” was close enough to profanity that the school could ban it. But, as FIRE’s petition to the Court explains, saying “Let’s Go Brandon” is no different than using words “heck” or “shoot” in place of swear words. The lower courts’ rulings leave the Supreme Court as the students’ only recourse.

FIRE's petition explains that allowing individual teachers and administrators to decide what is “vulgar” is unworkable: “A political shirt could have First Amendment protection in second-period algebra but not third-period biology.” And permitting each teacher to create and enforce their own test for “vulgarity” is a recipe for viewpoint discrimination.

“The school district’s censorship assumes that students cannot handle seeing even sanitized expressions,” said Fitzpatrick. “But America’s next generation is not so fragile, and the First Amendment is not so brittle.”

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The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought — the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE educates Americans about the importance of these inalienable rights, promotes a culture of respect for these rights, and provides the means to preserve them.

CONTACT
Katie Stalcup, Communications Campaign Manager, FIRE: 215-717-3473; media@thefire.org