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Seventh-Grader Says School Punished Her For Breast Cancer Awareness Bracelet

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — A local seventh-grader says she was punished for wearing a bracelet supporting breast cancer awareness.

The school district says she wasn't following the dress code.

The battle has been brewing since Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October.

When Ashleigh Williams says her school Rio Prep Academy insisted she had to turn them inside out or take them off, it reached a head on Wednesday.

"I've worn my bracelets since third grade," she said.

Williams proudly wears her I Heart Boobies bracelets in support of her grandmother, Happy Bennett, who is a breast cancer survivor.

"I was hurt when I had cancer," Bennett said. "I'm hurt now that they're making such a fuss over it, and it means a lot to me. I love her that she cares about it."

Williams says the school resource officer took her bracelets away on Wednesday, so her mother Vickie Williams came to the school.

"He gave me the bracelets, and said, 'You either take the bracelets and she's suspended for tomorrow, or you give me the bracelets,'" Vickie said. So I said, 'Suspend my daughter, because I'm not gonna make her take her bracelets off and you're not gonna keep her bracelets.'"

So she got in touch with CBS13 and asked a simple question: Can the district do this?

It depends on who you ask.

The Twin Rivers Unified School District pointed us to its dress code forbidding "vulgar," "suggestive" or "obscene" material. They say one of Ashleigh's bracelets had a picture of breasts, inappropriate in a junior high with fifth- and sixth-graders.

The American Civil Liberties Union disagrees, saying it's free speech protected by the First Amendment, as well as California's constitution.

A federal court in Pennsylvania recently sided with a student over the school in a strikingly similar debate over the same bracelets. Technically, that court's ruling doesn't apply here.

In what is a legal gray area, one thing is clear, Ashleigh's mind is made up.

"I'm going to still wear it," she said. "I don't care about how much trouble I get in at school, because it's for a good cause."

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