The Volusia County School District in the Orlando area says that the “political statement” on Tyler Maxwell’s truck is banned.
The school board says they have:
“obligation to provide politically neutral campuses. We allow political expression by students in the form of a T-shirt or a bumper sticker. But large signage is a different situation. A passerby could interpret a large sign in a school parking lot to be an endorsement by the school district.”
That’s just stupid. No one is going to pass by the school and see a hand-painted elephant on the back of a pickup and think, ‘gee, that high school must endorse Trump’.
Maxwell’s attorney, Jacob Heubert, with Goldwater Institute, says “it’s a freedom of speech case. The question is, 'Should a student have to give up his free speech right when he drives onto school property?' The answer to that is no and the school just needs to realize that.”
On Friday, a judge granted a temporary restraining order to allow Maxwell to park his truck back on campus.
Republican attorney Jonathan Turley writes:
“The controversy is a classic example of how school officials have become emboldened in acts of censorship and speech regulation. We have been discussing the alarming rise of speech limitations and sanctions imposed by school officials. We have seen a steady erosion of the free speech rights of students in the last decade... We have seen school officials even crackdown on bumper stickers on cars. Maxwell not only was barred from showing his elephant but he was barred from parking on school grounds.”