Two brothers, Eight and 5, have been faraway from their Oklahoma elementary college school rooms this previous week and made to attend out the varsity day in a entrance workplace for carrying T-shirts that learn “Black Lives Matter,” in keeping with the boys’ mom.

The superintendent of the Ardmore, Okla., college district the place the brothers, Bentlee and Rodney Herbert, attend completely different faculties had beforehand informed their mom, Jordan Herbert, that politics would “not be allowed at school,” Ms. Herbert recalled on Friday.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma has known as the incident a violation of the scholars’ First Amendment rights.

On April 30, Bentlee, who’s within the third grade, went to class at Charles Evans Elementary in a Black Lives Matter shirt, which Ms. Herbert stated he had picked out himself to put on.

That night, Ms. Herbert discovered that the varsity’s principal, Denise Brunk, had informed Bentlee that he was not allowed to put on the T-shirt. At Ms. Brunk’s route, he turned the shirt inside out and completed out the varsity day.

On Monday, Ms. Herbert went to the varsity to ask the principal what dress-code coverage her son had violated, Ms. Herbert stated. Ms. Brunk referred her to the Ardmore City Schools superintendent, Kim Holland.

“He told me when the George Floyd case blew up that politics will not be allowed at school,” Ms. Herbert stated on Friday, referring to Mr. Holland. “I told him, once again, a ‘Black Lives Matter’ T-shirt is not politics.”

Neither Ms. Brunk nor Mr. Holland responded to emails or telephone calls in search of touch upon Friday.

On Tuesday, Ms. Herbert’s three sons — Bentlee; Rodney, who’s in kindergarten; and Jaelon, a sixth grader, all of whom are Black — went to their faculties in matching T-shirts with the phrases “Black Lives Matter” and a picture of a clenched fist on the entrance.

Later that morning, Ms. Herbert obtained a name from Rodney’s college, Will Rogers Elementary, telling her that she wanted to both convey Rodney a distinct shirt or let the varsity present one for him, or Rodney can be compelled to sit down within the entrance workplace for the remainder of the varsity day. Rodney didn’t change shirts, and he sat within the workplace till college was over.

Ms. Herbert discovered later that day that Bentlee had additionally been made to sit down in his college’s entrance workplace, the place he missed recess, and didn’t eat lunch within the cafeteria along with his classmates.

Jaelon, 12, encountered no points at Ardmore Middle School due to his T-shirt, his mom stated.

In an interview with The Daily Ardmoreite, Mr. Holland urged that the T-shirts have been disruptive.

“It’s our interpretation of not creating a disturbance in school,” Mr. Holland informed the newspaper. “I don’t want my kids wearing MAGA hats or Trump shirts to school either because it just creates, in this emotionally charged environment, anxiety and issues that I don’t want our kids to deal with.”

Mr. Holland stated there had been related circumstances within the district this 12 months.

“Most of it has not been an issue until this lady here has been angry about it,” Mr. Holland informed The Ardmoreite. “I wish she weren’t so upset.”

Ms. Herbert stated she met with Mr. Holland on Monday and requested him what would occur if she despatched her youngsters to highschool in “Black Lives Matter” T-shirts once more.

“He told me nothing could be done because it wasn’t against policy,” Ms. Herbert recalled.

Indeed, the costume code outlined within the district’s Elementary Student Handbook makes no point out of politics. It says that “sayings or logos” on shirts or tops “should be in good taste and school appropriate.”

“Any clothing or apparel that disrupts the learning process is prohibited,” the handbook provides, stipulating that principals have the ultimate say on “the appropriateness of dress.”

To Ms. Herbert, the concept her 8-year-old son wouldn’t “be able to express that his life matters” was ludicrous.

On Friday, the A.C.L.U. of Oklahoma despatched a letter to Mr. Holland, Ms. Brunk and James Foreman Jr., president of the Ardmore City School Board of Education.

In the letter, the A.C.L.U. stated it could be a violation of the scholars’ First Amendment rights to be prohibited from carrying clothes that claims “Black Lives Matter.”

If the varsity district doesn’t reverse its coverage and permit college students to put on “Black Lives Matter” clothes, it have to be ready to show in federal courtroom how carrying the T-shirts creates “a substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities,” the A.C.L.U. stated. “Anything less than that would be found to be a violation of the students’ First Amendment rights.”

It cited a 1969 U.S. Supreme Court case, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, which addressed the problem of a gaggle of scholars who wore black armbands to object to the Vietnam War. A principal informed the scholars that they might be suspended in the event that they wore the armbands in school.

The courtroom dominated 7-2 that college students don’t “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

“This has been the unmistakable holding of this Court for almost 50 years,” the A.C.L.U. stated.

Mr. Foreman and the opposite members of the varsity board didn’t reply to requests for touch upon Saturday.

In addition to points with disciplinary motion, Ms. Herbert stated Bentlee has now been bullied in school over his T-shirt. When Bentlee returned from college on Thursday, he informed his mom that two white boys had picked on him.

“One boy told him that his life does not matter, and the other one told him to just get suspended,” Ms. Herbert stated.

The principal informed Ms. Herbert the state of affairs can be dealt with, she stated.

“With everything going on in the world today, I keep my boys informed,” Ms. Herbert stated, including that the household watched the information collectively. “They know what’s going on.”

Out of precept, Ms. Herbert stated she would proceed to assist her sons in carrying the T-shirts to highschool.

Despite the turmoil, the shirts have been by no means meant to be an “attention-seeking ordeal,” Ms. Herbert stated. “I don’t see Black Lives Matter disrupting anything.”