By David Gregorio

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City public schools will
allow students to wear clothes with political slogans
after settling a lawsuit with a teen-age girl who was
suspended for wearing a T-shirt that said "Barbie is a
Lesbian," her lawyer said on Thursday.

"Students in the nation's largest school district will
now have the First Amendment right to wear T-shirts
and armbands that express controversial political
views," attorney Ronald Kuby said.

Some 1.1 million students attend New York City public
schools.

The city also agreed to pay $30,000 to Kuby's client,
15-year-old Natalie Young, a lesbian who was sent to
the principal's office in April 2002 when she showed
up at her school in the Queens borough wearing her
"Barbie is a Lesbian" T-shirt.

She refused to change and was suspended for the day
and threatened with further suspension if she wore it
again.

Her mother sued the city over her right to express her
views.

"I felt there was nothing wrong with it," Young said
as she held up the T-shirt during a news conference.

Kuby said the school system also agreed to require
teachers and administrators to undergo sensitivity
training to improve relations with gay and lesbian
students.

He said the New York City School Department, which
lacked a written policy concerning student dress,
agreed to adopt one that conforms to federal Education
Department policy and U.S. Supreme Court (news - web
sites) rulings on student expression.

"Students don't have the full set of First Amendment
rights in an educational setting, but they do have
substantial rights," he said.

The new policy states that students have the right to
"wear political or other types of buttons, badges or
armbands, except where such material is libelous,
obscene" or disrupts the school or leads to disorder
or invades the rights of others.

The policy also bans dress that is "dangerous or
interferes with the learning or teaching process."

Kuby said the measure allows a student to wear a
T-shirt that says the war with Iraq (news - web sites)
was wrong, but could ban T-shirts praising Osama Bin
Laden.

Donna Kasbohm, an attorney for the city, said she
expected to sign off on the settlement.

"I do not anticipate any problems," she told Reuters.

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