Girl Suspended for Condom Display Files Suit : Courts: ACLU charges that school violated right to free speech. District says her actions were inappropriate.

Fourteen-year-old Astrianna Johnson said she was so concerned about friends who have gotten pregnant, and the spread of the deadly AIDS virus that she wanted to make a bold statement about the importance of safe sex: She pinned condom packs to her shoes and clothes at school.

Her campaign got Astrianna suspended from school last fall after the principal at Bethune Middle School in South-Central Los Angeles said the eighth-grader was not old enough to make statements about sex, according to a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday against the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Astrianna, who says her right to free speech has been violated, said in an interview Friday that administrators “should face the fact” that teen-agers her age are having sex and that her school should provide better sex education and AIDS awareness instruction.

“When my friends started having babies, when they started having sex without protection, that’s when I decided to start wearing them (condoms),” said the girl, who is back in school and has ceased wearing the packets until the case is settled.

The lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, seeks to allow Astrianna to wear the sealed condom packages in class with “safe sex” written on them as a means to increase student awareness. In the past, Astrianna had worn up to five packages on her shoes, jacket lapel and her upper right pant leg, court documents said.

In addition to the school district, the lawsuit names Principal Edith H. Morris and Assistant Principal Lucreisa Sturns. Morris declined to comment.

School district spokesman Bill Rivera said the district administration supports the principal’s decision to order the girl to remove the condoms and suspend her for one day.

“School administrators felt it was inappropriate,” Rivera said, adding that the girl had displayed one condom in her crotch area. “Sometimes there is a greater right--that her actions might lead to disrupting other students--and school administration has to take appropriate steps to make sure that doesn’t happen.” Amos Dyson, the girl’s ACLU attorney, denied that Astrianna ever wore a condom on her crotch.

Astrianna said: “There really wasn’t a lot of reaction from my friends. It didn’t disturb anyone. They just asked me why I was wearing them. I said if they are going to have sex, they have to be safe and use protection.”

According to the lawsuit, Sturns told Astrianna to remove condoms from her shoe because it conflicted with school policy that promotes student sexual abstinence. After she came to school again with condoms on her shoes and pants, the girl’s mother, Sundra Johnson, was called in.

Morris said that although displaying condoms was “not clearly prohibited under the school rules,” it was “distasteful to the administration . . . on the list of dangerous things,” court records said.

Sundra Johnson disagreed. When her daughter told the principal she had a right to wear the packages and would continue to do so, Astrianna was suspended.

“I believe my daughter has a right to express herself and that she is not too young to make a statement like this,” Sundra Johnson said. “We have had discussions together about sex and when she has questions she knows she can come to me. If I don’t have the answer, we will find out together.”

Dyson said that Astrianna is expressing her views “in a very discreet and subtle way. . . . This was not a circus-like thing. She didn’t look like a clown.”

The district’s health curriculum encompasses a broad range of issues. Middle and high school students, who must obtain parental permission, receive about 20 hours of sex education that includes instruction on AIDS awareness, sexually transmitted diseases, safe sex and abstinence, said Claudia Baker, who prepares the programs.

Condoms are available to students at all high schools with parental permission. Only 3% of parents districtwide refuse to allow their children to attend sex education classes, Baker said.