Judge Rules School District Can Bar Student From Wearing US/Mexican Flag Sash at Graduation

A federal judge in Colorado ruled Friday that a school district is within its rights to bar a high school students from wearing a sash displaying the Mexican and American flags at her graduation this weekend.

Judge Nina Wang said the garb is considered school-sponsored speech, meaning it is not protected by the student's First Amendment rights, according to the Associated Press.

Therefore, “the School District is permitted to restrict that speech as it sees fit in the interest of the kind of graduation it would like to hold,” Wang wrote in her decision.

Naomi Peña Villasano sued Garfield County School District 16 to seek a temporary restraining order to allow her to wear the sash during her graduation, AP reported.

High school graduates often wear some kind of memento with their caps and gowns at their degree ceremonies.

At the hearing Friday, Peña Villasano's attorneys argued the school district policy violated her free speech rights.

They also contended the school policy that allows for Native American attire to be worn during the ceremony, but not Peña Villasano's sash symbolizing her heritage, was inconsistent with its policy, AP reported.

“The district is discriminating against the expression of different cultural heritages,” said attorney Kenneth Parreno, of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

But Holly Ortiz, an attorney for the school district, argued the Native American attire is protected by Colorado law and is therefore different from wearing the flags of two nations.

Allowing Peña Villasano to wear the sash could open "the door to offensive material," Ortiz said.

Ortiz said the district would allow her to wear the sash before or after the ceremony, but added: “She doesn’t have a right to express it in any way that she wants."

Wang determined in her decision that the school district "could freely permit one sash and prohibit another."

There have been similar legal challenges regarding graduation attire around the nation this year.

In Mississippi, a transgender girl sued her school district after it said it would not allow her to wear a dress to her graduation ceremony.

A former student filed a lawsuit against her school in Oaklahoma for removing a feather, a sacred Native American religious item, from her cap ahead of last year's graduation events, AP reported.