A South Carolina high school student says she was suspended last week for wearing a shirt that said “Nobody knows I’m a lesbian,” WCBD 2 News reported.
The student, Briana Popour — who is openly gay and says she wears the shirt to reach out to other gay students — told WCBD 2 News that school officials gave her the choice of changing the shirt or going home.
“I’ve worn this shirt before and nobody’s ever said anything,” Popour told the local news station. When she pointed out to administrators that clothing displaying one’s sexual orientation is not prohibited by the school’s dress code handbook, she said she was told, “Well, not everything is in the handbook.’”
WCBD 2 News reached out to the school — Chesnee High School in Chesnee, S.C. — for comment. A district official responded via email that the shirt was “offensive and distracting” and pointed to a section in the dress code that said, “Clothing deemed distracting, revealing, overly suggestive or otherwise disruptive will not be permitted.”
I predict:
Everyone now knows.
Briana will receive an apology (or possibly a monetary award post-lawsuit).
The dress code will be updated.
jw1
Maybe the school’s administrators thought the shirt read, “Nobody Knows I’m a Lebanese” and due to their mistrust of Muslins, suspended her.
Any message on any shirt can be “distracting.” I would like to see what kind of messages on shirts have not been deemed “distracting” by school administrators. How about “Fuck Muslims”? Is that OK to wear? Or perhaps even encouraged? “Nobody knows I’m Born Again” or “Black Lives Matter” shirts?
Schools are there to teach. What better topic to teach about than the subject of this student’s shirt, an integral part of life? When schools get in the business of regulating speech, they are not teaching. They are censoring.
Welp, the Section 1983 lawsuit and settlement should help pay for college at least…
A well-written rule there–“deemed distracting”. Really lets the students know in advance what is OK and what is not.