School Bars Yearbook Photo of Student in Medieval Garb
By TAMAR LEWIN
Patrick Agin, a high school senior in Portsmouth, R.I., was surprised by his school’s refusal this fall to use a yearbook photograph of him dressed in medieval chain mail, with a broadsword over his shoulder.
“I didn’t think it would be that big a deal,” said Mr. Agin, a 17-year-old who attends Portsmouth High School. “I just really like the picture, and it’s one of the first good photos I’ve taken in a long time.”
Good or not, the school said, the picture ran afoul of its zero-tolerance weapons policy.
“Students wielding weapons is just not consistent with our existing policies or the mission of the school,” said Robert Littlefield, the principal. “I think the picture speaks for itself.”
It is not that simple. The Rhode Island branch of the American Civil Liberties Union has filed suit supporting Mr. Agin’s free-speech rights to use the photo, and both sides have agreed to take the matter to the state education commissioner.
The civil liberties organization said the school’s position took zero tolerance well past the point of common sense.
“It’s a perfect example of bureaucratic ridiculousness,” said Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island branch of the organization. “We have had zero-tolerance cases before, one where a district punished a kindergartner for bringing in a butter knife, and another where a school suspended two first graders who brought a toy ray gun. But this case is even more ridiculous, since Patrick was not even bringing the weapon to school.”
The school’s position is particularly untenable, he said, given that the school mascot is a Revolutionary War soldier carrying a rifle.
“That’s an entirely different issue,” Mr. Littlefield said. “I don’t think anybody could reasonably construe a cartoon depiction of a soldier from 250 years ago as a threat to our educational environment.”
Mr. Agin and his mother, Heidi Farrington, say there is no threat in the chain mail, either, just self-expression.
“Historically, the kids have always been encouraged to take their pictures in a self-expressive fashion,” said Ms. Farrington, herself a graduate of the high school. “There was one kid last year on a skateboard, jumping off a set of stairs, and band members who pose with their instrument. I tried to talk to the superintendent, but I didn’t hear back from her for two weeks, several days after I’d gotten in touch with the A.C.L.U.”
Mr. Agin comes by his interest in chain mail naturally; his uncle makes chain mail, and his mother sells it at fairs. He also belongs to the Society for Creative Anachronism, which promotes re-enactments of medieval history.
The school has offered to let Mr. Agin buy a yearbook ad showing the photo. By itself, that takes the whole situation into the surreal, the civil liberties organization said.
“I guess they think it’s a danger to the school system on Page 6, but not on Page 26,” Mr. Brown said.
But the school said it had higher standards for editorial content than for advertising.
“We believe that our official publications are not necessarily an open public forum for students to express whatever it is they feel,” Mr. Littlefield said. “We see it as our official annual publication, and we reserve the right to exercise some reasonable editorial control over the content.”
The lawyer for the school, Stephen Robinson, said the yearbook’s advertising section had traditionally operated under less scrutiny.
“There have been two instances in the past of kids wanting to pose with weapons,” he said. “One was a Civil War re-enacter, with a musket, and another was a marksman, and in both cases, we let them take out ads.”
