Too Much for T-Shirts
Schools act when slogans get too racy for classrooms
By Rob Rogers
The move was creative and certainly enterprising.
Shasta High School senior Taylor Jackson had designed and created the T-shirts himself and managed to sell a few to students, parents and a handful of teachers before the administration put a stop to it.
"Pimps wear purple," the shirts read across the front. "What you reppin’" was splashed across the back.
They were also emblazoned with the school’s logo.
Principal Milan Woollard said the problem was that students were selling the T-shirts at school and they had the school logo on them. Both are against school policy.
But, he said, "The real problem is the inappropriate nature of the message."
Whether homemade or store-bought, more school administrators are finding themselves confronted with T-shirts that are more provocative, suggestive and blatantly sexual than in the past.
Compared with other slogans, "Pimps wear purple" can seem mild. A selection of T-shirts at the Mt. Shasta Mall include such phrases as "Let’s be friends. With benefits," "Your Mom. Upside Down. Wow" and "You Must Be This Tall to Ride." Another — "Bang Me" beneath an illustration of a drum kit — comes in baby doll sizes for girls.
"It always comes down to judgment," said Kyle Turner, principal at Foothill High School.
If the T-shirt is offensive, distracting, inflammatory or bears the logo or image of tobacco or alcohol products, it’s banned from campus.
"Obviously from our standpoint, we don’t want to offend," Turner said. But, "bottom line, we’re here to educate and not give out style points."
At school, a healthy learning environment is the most important, many educators said. Anything that takes away from that will be challenged by administrators.
"If it’s a disruption to the learning process, that’s where we step in," Turner said.
This year, Turner said the school had had relatively few incidents of students wearing inappropriate T-shirts to school. When it does happen, the shirt is usually confiscated and the parent has to come in, sign for it and take it home.
That way, Turner said, the parents are involved and have motivation not to let their child attend school in inappropriate clothing.
But parental involvement isn’t always to the administrators’ liking.
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