The bill is rather vague, but not very long, so I'll first describe the sorts of "behavior" that I think the law applies to, and then go through the relevant Constitutional issues.
TL;DR: I don't think it violates the Eighth Amendment, but it might violate the First Amendment depending on how it is interpreted and applied.
The bill excludes the following students from school:
- "Students who purport to be an imaginary animal or animal species"
- "[Students] who engage in anthropomorphic behavior commonly referred to as furries at school"
(1) appears to be a restriction on student speech at school. It is therefore subject to the rather deferential standard established in Tinker v. Des Moines (in which a group of students wore black armbands to protest the Vietnam War, and successfully sued to defend their right to do so after the school tried to ban it). If a school can show that student speech "would materially and substantially disrupt the work and discipline of the school," then it may be restricted, but otherwise, students can say what they want at school. If students are going around calling themselves furries, and this is causing significant actual disruption, then the school may be justified in prohibiting this behavior. But if the speech is banned on a purely speculative basis, with no evidence of disruption, then the courts will tend to look on that less favorably. Since this ban makes no mention of disruption, I tend to think the courts would disapprove of it, but it would probably depend on the specific facts of the case.
(2) is very vague, and frankly I have no idea what it is talking about, but I think it probably does extend to at least some expressive conduct. However, most of the conduct I can think of very likely would be disruptive enough to satisfy Tinker v. Des Moines. For example, if a student is walking around on all fours and making animal noises, that is probably going to be at least a little disruptive at any level higher than Kindergarten. Similarly, if a student decides to show up in a fursuit, most schools are probably going to find some part of the dress code that it purportedly violates, and send the student home (which is for the best, as fursuits are notoriously prone to overheating and generally incompatible with everyday use).
The mention of animal control is amusing but probably irrelevant. The bill does not specifically authorize animal control to take any action other than "removing" the student. If a police officer or school resource officer "removed" the student from school grounds, that would (under reasonable circumstances) not be seen as an Eighth Amendment violation (or indeed a criminal penalty of any kind), and substituting animal control for the police doesn't change that analysis. The fact that animal control is not trained to do this sort of thing obviously makes it a bad idea, but the Constitution is not intended to prevent state legislatures from passing any and all bad ideas into law.
