Oliver Burkeman

Zachary Guiles knew he was being provocative when he showed up for school two years ago in a T-shirt that accused George Bush of being a war-mongering draft-dodger, a drunkard and a drug addict. What the 13-year-old may not have realised was that he would provoke a major free-speech battle that culminated this week in a court victory.

An appeals court in New York found that Zachary’s constitutional rights were violated when officials at his Vermont school made him stick duct tape over parts of the T-shirt. The shirt also said the president was undertaking a “world domination tour” and showed a picture of his head superimposed on a chicken’s body, along with cocaine, a razor blade and a martini glass. Zachary was suspended for a day, but continued to wear the T-shirt to school, complete with duct tape.

The T-shirt “uses harsh rhetoric and imagery to express disagreement with the president’s policies and to impugn his character”, the court ruled, but the images “are not plainly offensive as a matter of law”.

Read More T-Shirt