Is it against the law to wear the American flag on your clothes? Susan Scafidi, founder and director of Fordham Law’s Fashion Law Institute, answers the fashion-related question for The New York Times.
More pertinently, according to Susan Scafidi, the founder of the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham University, “a series of Supreme Court cases have established that First Amendment free-speech protections outweigh laws that attempt to prohibit desecration of the flag, including by wearing it.”
This is also true, she said in an email, for the use of the flag in retail fashion, “whether Ralph Lauren’s classic sweaters” — the ones worn by the U.S. Olympic team — “or Willy Chavarria’s critical ‘Falling Stars’ version: upside down, a recognized distress symbol, with the stars falling out.”
In other words, it may seem flippant and frivolous to wear the flag as a souvenir tee, but the issue is one of morality and semiology, not legality.
Read “Is It Against the Law to Wear the U.S. Flag on Your Clothes?” in The New York Times.