School districts across the nation banned students from wearing the controversial “I heart boobies bracelets” on an individual district’s basis, from Baltic High School in South Dakota to even as close to home as junior high schools in Perkin, Illinois.

            The bands represent more than just a few words plastered onto a piece of rubber: they represent a cause, and students should be able to support these causes in a school setting. Preventing them from doing so inhibits a student’s right to expression.

            The school administration at Baltic High School deemed the bands inappropriate because they believe the blunt statement on the bracelets is not the “proper way” to bring light to the subject of breast cancer, according to a September 2010 USA Today article.

            The Keep A Breast Foundation, the maker of these bracelets, is on a mission to “help eradicate breast cancer by exposing young people to methods of prevention, early detection and support. Through art events, educational programs and fundraising efforts, we seek to increase breast cancer awareness among young people so they are better equipped to make choices and develop habits that will benefit their long-term health and well-being,” according to their website http://keep-a-breast.org.

            “That’s the whole idea, it’s getting people to talk about breast cancer, it’s getting people to share their feelings about how this disease has impacted their life,” Ann Aberson, Baltic High School student who has lost several relatives to cancer told USA Today. “The bracelet is doing what it’s meant to do, it’s making people talk.”

            And although they make people talk about the cause, they do not cause a distraction in a school setting, especially here at LZ. They are so inconspicuous that not even Meghan Kolze, Dean of students, was aware of their popularity until an interview with Bear Facts.

            “If it causes a distraction, we can ask the students to remove them,” Kolze said. “But if students are wearing them for the right reasons, and not flaunting the fact that they say ‘boobies’, then we can not ask students to remove them. We have not had any issue with that, though.”

            The administrations who ban the bracelets must not have studied the case of Tinker vs. Des Moines, a trial debating whether students should be able to express their views on a cause freely.  In 1965, John Tinker, the defendant, wore a black armband around his upper bicep in protest of the Vietnam War. The school suspended him because they claimed the silent protest disrupted the school day. In 1969, the Supreme Court overturned the school’s decision and gave the students a voice, treating them as full-fledged citizens of the U.S.

            So what has happened to “No student sheds their constitutional rights at the school house gate”, a quote directly taken from the ruling of the trial itself?

            Tinker’s arm-bands were a silent protest against the bombings during the Vietnam war. The “I heart boobies” bands are our age’s silent plea for a cure, a protest of our own. Students who wear the bands don’t wish to cause disruption during the school day, only to express their support for find a cure for breast cancer.

            So whether school administrators across the nation love boobies or not, the choice to wear the “I heart boobies” bracelets should not be the administration’s choice. It should be the students.