The Coed Naked Banned (Band) Controversy

Back in late 1992 I heard a rumor that a local high school was banning our shirts. I honestly thought nothing of it. In early 1993 the banning seemed to pick up steam as friends sent me articles from all over the country with headlines such as, “Coed Naked Logos Tossed from School,” “Coed Naked Ban Reaction Mixed,” and “Teens Taboo T-shirts Test Limits of School Dress Codes.” I’m not kidding when I say I was sent hundreds of news articles on School t-shirt bans that spanned a period of three years from 1993 through 1995, and almost every one of them named Coed Naked as the main culprit for the dress code controversy.

But whoever said, “there is no such thing as bad press,” was dead on when it came to these headlines. Coed Naked sales tripled in 1993 and tripled again in 1994 surpassing almost 4 million t-shirts sold in that year alone.

But there was one school banning that garnered more press than any other. In March 1993 Jeffrey Pyle, a senior at South Hadley High School in Massachusetts, was sent home by his gym teacher because he was wearing a Coed Naked Band t-shirt. But Jeffrey and his younger brother Jonathan were not going to let the school off easy and they decided to challenge the school and its dress code verbiage. They worked with William Newman, the Director of the Western Office of the Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts and threatened suit against the school. They also challenged the school by creating their own controversial shirts, including a Coed Naked Civil Liberties shirt to test the school’s resolve.

On May 12th the School held a meeting in which the decided to uphold their dress code (or as I would suggest their anti-Coed Naked policy). That decision moved the Pyle brothers and William Newman from the ALCU closer to filing a lawsuit protecting freedom of expression. As you can imagine, this situation in South Hadley gained national attention and Coed Naked became the hero or the villain depending on people’s perspective, in the press throughout the country.

In March 1994 the suit finally went to court, and it wasn’t until July 1996 that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in favor of the Pyle brothers claiming that it was within their rights to wear their shirt.

Although Coed Naked Lacrosse is the original and most famous Coed Naked shirt, and Coed Naked Firefighting is the top selling Coed Naked t-shirt, The Coed Naked Band shirt certainly is the most controversial of our shirts and likely has seen more press time than any other Coed Naked tee.

You can find the classic band tee by pressing here.

Mark Lane

Coed Sportswear