'Gifties' lose court battle over T-shirts

CHICAGO, Jan. 5 (UPI) -- A class of gifted students in Chicago has lost its battle to express the students' status through custom-made T-shirts.

The so-called "Gifties" of Beaubien School were punished by their principal four years ago for wearing T-shirts with the word "Gifties" on them to school. Claiming that the ban on the shirts violated their First Amendment rights, 24 of the students sued their principal and the Chicago Board of Education. They lost this week in U.S. District Court, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Friday.

Four years ago, when they were in eighth grade, the "gifties" made the T-shirts as a response to losing a school-wide T-shirt design contest. School administrators sequestered them from the rest of the student body when they wore the shirts, fearing reprisal from the regular education students, the Sun-Times said.

"Why do people bring lawsuits for such trivialities?" asked U.S. District Court Judge Richard Posner, one of three judges on the panel.