Right but the T-shirt is saying, in effect, "The Supreme Court said this was free speech." It is arguably only expounding how far the boundaries of free speech

Right but the T-shirt is saying, in effect, "The Supreme Court said this was free speech." It is arguably only expounding how far the boundaries of free speech go. This is an interesting question because it gets to the heart of the question of how far free speech goes in school. I have trouble imagining a court holding that summarizing and quoting from a Supreme Court opinion is not free speech and protected (and the hypothetical T-shirt clearly does this), but I am also pretty sure the Southern Poverty Law Center would sue in a second if the school didn't take action. This is an example of a hypothetical where significant legal arguments could mean both that the school must act and also that the school must not act. It's even possible a school could be sued and lose on both sides. BTW, the states rights argument regarding the Civil Rights Act is more complex and it has to do with unconstitutional efforts to ensure ratification (refusing to seat Senators from non-ratifying states). My view however is that these could have been raised early on and weren't. I think latches doctrine needs to apply at some point. Otherwise we get to nitpick everything in history all the time. The Equal Protection Clause should be included as a restriction of states' rights. (On States' Rights issues I generally agree with Sandra Day O'Connor.)