2026-10-05T13:47:13.655Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/05/politics/supreme-court-orders-released
美国最高法院周一拒绝受理两名中学生的第一修正案上诉，这两名学生曾被要求脱下印有“去吧，布兰登”字样的卫衣。最高法院此举避开了一起本可以明确学校在课堂上管控潜在冒犯性言论权力的案件。
通过拒绝受理这起上诉，大法官们维持了支持学区的上诉法院判决。
“去吧，布兰登”已成为右翼用来指代“去他的乔·拜登”的暗号。2021年的一场纳斯卡赛事上，观众高呼这句粗话，但一名采访车手布兰登·布朗的记者却称观众其实是在为布朗欢呼。
这两名学生是兄弟，事发时分别读八年级和六年级，2022年他们身着印有该标语的卫衣来到密歇根州的三郡中学。在两次单独的交涉中，一名教师和一名助理校长要求这两名学生脱下卫衣——法庭文件中仅以姓名首字母指代这两名学生。该家庭于2023年提起诉讼，指控学校违反了第一和第十四修正案。
距最高法院允许学生佩戴黑色臂章抗议越南战争的标志性判决近60年后，这起案件原本有望进一步明确学生在学校的言论自由权利。这一里程碑式的判决“廷克诉得梅因案”裁定，学生进入校园并未丧失第一修正案赋予的权利。
但该规则存在例外。例如，学校可以禁止扰乱课堂的言论。1986年的一项先例也是这起卫衣案件的核心依据，最高法院当时裁定学校可以禁止粗俗和冒犯性语言，并指出了具体语境。
为证明即使是“经过美化的暗号、影射和双关语”形式的低俗言论在课堂上也不应受保护，由资深最高法院律师丽莎·布拉特代表的学区提交了一些令人瞠目的例子。该学区的辩护状中提及了一件印有总统唐纳德·特朗普抱着多只猫咪、配文“这就是你抓她们的方式”的T恤，这句话影射了2005年《访问好莱坞》的录音，其中特朗普被录音称自己会抚摸并亲吻女性。
“以数字69为例。虽然表面上它只是介于68和70之间的普通数字，但许多人都知道它指代一种性姿势，”学区在向最高法院提交的文件中写道。“答辩方为本次辩护状中使用的冒犯性语言和图像致歉。”
美国第六巡回上诉法院的一个分裂合议庭支持了学区的主张。该家庭的代理方是个人权利与表达基金会。
五年前，最高法院以8比1的投票结果裁定支持一名前高中啦啦队队员，该队员辩称，自己在放学后的 Snapchat 上发布带有粗口的配文不应受到公立学校的处罚。这起涉及宾夕法尼亚州少年的案件受到广泛关注，外界希望借此了解法院将如何处理约5000万公立学校学生的言论自由权利，以及学校对可能扰乱校园运作、构成欺凌或威胁的校外网络言论的担忧。
“或许会有人倾向于认为（学生的）言论不值得本文所讨论的强有力的第一修正案保护，”已退休的大法官斯蒂芬·布雷耶代表法院写道，“但有时，为了保护必要的权利，我们需要保护那些看似多余的言论。”
最高法院周一还驳回了迪伦·鲁夫的上诉。这名南卡罗来纳州男子十多年前在查尔斯顿一座历史悠久的黑人教堂枪杀了9人。
鲁夫因伊曼纽尔非裔卫理公会教堂大屠杀案，被判处9项出于种族动机的杀人仇恨犯罪及其他罪名成立。两年后他被判处死刑，目前被关押在印第安纳州一所最高安全级别的联邦监狱的联邦死囚区。
在最新的上诉中，鲁夫声称主审法官、美国地区法官理查德·格格尔本应回避此案，因为据报道另一名法官曾告诉一名律师“格格尔非常想接手这个案子”。鲁夫的辩护团队将这句话解读为格格尔急于定罪量刑，已越界构成偏袒。
最高法院曾在2022年驳回过鲁夫的一起早期上诉。在那起案件中，鲁夫曾要求大法官们裁决当被告及其律师就庭审中是否提交被告精神疾病相关证据存在分歧时该如何处理。
Supreme Court declines First Amendment case of students forced to remove ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ sweatshirts
2026-10-05T13:47:13.655Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/05/politics/supreme-court-orders-released
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up a First Amendment appeal from two middle school students who were ordered to remove sweatshirts emblazoned with the words “Let’s Go Brandon,” steering clear of a case that could have clarified the power schools have to police potentially offensive speech in the classroom.
By not granting the appeal, the justices left in place an appeals court decision that favored the school district.
The phrase “Let’s Go Brandon” became right-wing code for “F**k Joe Biden.” It began at a NASCAR race in 2021 as a crowd chanted the more vulgar phrase but a reporter, interviewing a driver named Brandon Brown, suggested the crowd was instead cheering him on.
The two students, who are brothers — one in eighth grade at the time and the other in sixth — wore the sweatshirts to Tri County Middle School in Michigan in 2022. In separate encounters, a teacher and an assistant principal asked the students, identified only by their initials in court papers, to take the sweatshirts off. The family sued in 2023, alleging violations of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
A decision in the case, expected next year, would have further defined the free-speech rights of students in school nearly six decades after the Supreme Court allowed students to wear black armbands in protest of the Vietnam War. That landmark ruling, Tinker v. Des Moines, held that students do not lose their First Amendment rights when they enter school.
But there are exceptions to that rule. Schools may prohibit speech that disrupts the classroom, for one. And, in a 1986 precedent that is central to the sweatshirt case, the Supreme Court ruled that schools may prohibit vulgar and offensive language, noting the context.
To demonstrate that lewd speech that may not qualify for protection in the classroom if it comes in “sanitized code, innuendo, and double meaning,” the school district — represented by veteran Supreme Court lawyer Lisa Blatt — relied on some eye-opening examples. The district’s brief included a t-shirt that depicted President Donald Trump clutching several cats with the words “And that’s how you GRAB EM!” in reference to the “Access Hollywood tape,” which captured Trump in 2005 on a hot mic saying he gropes and kisses women.
“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,” the school district told the Supreme Court. “Respondents apologize for the use of offensive language and images in this brief.”
A divided panel of the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the school district. The family is represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
Five years ago, an 8-1 Supreme Court ruled in favor of a former high school cheerleader who argued that she could not be punished by her public school for posting a profanity-laced caption on Snapchat when she was off school grounds. The case involving a Pennsylvania teenager was closely watched to see how the court would handle the free speech rights of some 50 million public school children and the concerns of schools over off-campus and online speech that could amount to a disruption of the school’s mission or rise to the level of bullying or threats.
“It might be tempting to dismiss (the student’s) words as unworthy of the robust First Amendment protections discussed herein,” Justice Stephen Breyer, who has since retired, wrote for the court. “But sometimes it is necessary to protect the superfluous in order to preserve the necessary.”
The court on Monday also rejected an appeal from Dylann Roof, the South Carolina man who shot and killed nine people in a historically Black church in Charleston more than a decade ago.
Roof was convicted on nine counts of racially motivated hate crimes resulting in death and other crimes in the massacre at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. He was sentenced to death two years later and is currently on federal death row at a maximum-security prison in Indiana.
In his latest appeal, Roof argued that the trial court judge, US District Judge Richard Gergel, should have recused from the case because another judge reportedly told an attorney that “Gergel really wants to do it.” Roof’s defense read that statement as an eagerness to convict and sentence that crossed a line into partiality.
The Supreme Court declined to hear an earlier appeal from Roof in 2022. In that case, Roof had asked the justices to decide what to do when a defendant and his attorneys disagreed on whether to present evidence at trial depicting a defendant as mentally ill.
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