A Northern California high school girls basketball team, and one male player from the boys team, will have to sit out of a tournament because insisted on wearing T-shirts printed with the words "I Can't Breathe" on them, in support for protests happening around the country, according to The Associated Press.
Mendocino High School was told by the athletic director at Fort Bragg High School that their basketball teams would not be allowed to partake in a three-day tournament being hosted by Fort Bragg starting Monday due to the T-shirts the team wore during warm-ups.
The Mendocino varsity basketball teams first wore the "I Can't Breathe" T-shirts before a game with Fort Bragg on Dec. 16.
The girls basketball team also wore the shirts during that game and at two other tournaments and was not reprimanded.
Mendocino Unified School District Superintendent Jason Morse said all but one of the boys were allowed to play after agreeing not to wear the shirts, and not enough girl players agreed to not wear the shirts to have a full roster, according to the AP.
The words "I can't breath" were the last words Eric Garner spoke before dying at the hands of NYPD officers who placed him in a illegal chokehold, the AP reported.
The lone teenage boy who would not give up his right to wear the shirt was 16-year-old Connor Woods.
Marc Woods, Connor's father, said the shirt with the words "I Can't Breathe" was worn as an act of solidarity by his son, but has now become a constitutional issue.
Marc Woods has already contacted the American Civil Liberties Union and is waiting on a response.
"This is completely a First Amendment issue," Marc Woods told the AP. "That's why I'm offended. It doesn't take a lot to suppress the exchange of ideas when you put fear into it," he added.
He referred to a 1969 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Tinker v. Des Moines, which found high school students wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War were protected by the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.
Fort Bragg High School Principal Rebecca Walker issued a written statement Friday saying school administrators respected the Mendocino teams "for paying attention to what is going on in the world around them," but that the T-shirts were being prohibited as a security precaution, according to the AP.
"To protect the safety and well-being of all tournament participants it is necessary to ensure that all political statements and or protests are kept away from this tournament. We are a small school district that simply does not have the resources to ensure the safety and well-being of our staff, students and guests at the tournament should someone get upset and choose to act out," Walker said in the statement.
