With support from the American Civil Liberties Union, two Easton, Pa., middle school students are suing their school district over their suspensions for wearing popular bracelets supporting a breast cancer awareness group, the AP/Los Angeles Times reports. The $4 rubber bracelets, sold by the Calif.-based Keep A Breast Foundation, say "I [heart] boobies!"

School officials said the bracelet's slogan was distracting and demeaning, and some staff members felt they trivialized the disease. The bracelets also made some people uncomfortable and prompted inappropriate comments, officials said. The school district banned the bracelets in October 2009. The two students, ages 12 and 13, were suspended from school and barred from school dances for one month.

ACLU said that while the bracelets might be silly, they are not lewd or indecent. ACLU lawyer Mary Catherine Roper wrote in the lawsuit, "The First Amendment does not allow schools to censor students' speech merely because some students and teachers are offended by the non-vulgar, educational message, and silencing the speakers because other students may react inappropriately would amount to a constitutionally impermissible heckler's veto." The suit seeks a reversal of the ban, permission for the students to attend school functions and the expunging of their disciplinary records.

The bracelets are popular across the country, the AP/Times reports. ACLU is involved in two similar disputes, including one in Wyoming and a second Pennsylvania case. The Easton students are the first to file suit over the matter, Roper said (AP/Los Angeles Times, 11/16).

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