Student says he was sent home for wearing Colts jersey in Louisiana classroom

What context do we need? What don't we know?

Principal declares black and gold day.
Kid asks if he can wear Colts jersey
Principal says no
Kid does it anyway
Principal acts like a jerk to kid about it
Media gets called (and I'm pretty darn sure the principal didn't call, so that only leaves one side)

What context could we be missing?

 

Who's to say that it is or isn't worthwhile to make a stand in that case? That's up to the individual to decide on a case-by-case basis.

In this case, the kid was being told that he had to be surrounded in his learning environment by all the other kids wearing the colors of the team he didn't want to root for. If the school was interested in equality, they would have let the kid wear his jersey.

Instead, the school tried for some stupid rah-rah stuff to 'unify' them, and got upset when someone had their own opinion.

 

We are all free to decide for ourselves, and be judged by others for that choice.

And instead of letting it go, he made a pointless stink. In the future, the most likely result is that nobody will get to have any fun. It's a cousin to "let's get the coach fired because my kid isn't playing enough" and "That teacher gave me a B! How dare he?"

 

Re: Student says he was sent home for wearing Colts jersey in Louisiana classroo

Maybe the kid is constantly being a pain in the ass and always wanting to go a different way about everything. Or maybe he's a church mouse who never speaks up, but this was really important to him. We don't know. And I think that that kind of exposition would go a long way here in illuminating where everyone is coming from.

We're all assigning full personalities to the actors, including the kid's parents, who are barely in the background of the story, based on a skeletal knowledge of the facts of one incident.

 

As an appropos of nothing aside, I have been shocked that the "Teacher gave me a B! How dare he?" bullshit still goes on at the graduate school level. My professor recently had to send out an email basically explaining to all his upset students that they were being graded on a rigid curve, and just because they were at the top of their class their whole life doesn't give them the right to be there now.

My wife and I were speculating about whether the parents of any 25-year-olds were making phone calls or firing off emails. My guess is yes.

 

People trying to make this a First Amendment issue are missing the point.

The courts have ruled consistently that places that are considered private accommodation are allowed to make whatever decisions about dress codes they want to make, no matter how stupid they are.

As for children in high school? Well, the schools have more rights to impose dress codes than a lot of other places. The school was legally within their rights to send the student home for wearing a Colts jersey.

Was it the right thing to do? I don't think so. If you're going to institute this exception, you either need to let the kid wear his Colts jersey or require everyone to wear their school uniforms.

 

And if kids aren't able to have fun in the future, then that's the school's fault for not having a sense of humor, not the kid's.

Now, because this kid made a stink, the school will think twice about being so rigid in their policy.

To use another example, this would be like a school mandating that everyone eat pizza for lunch one day. Another kid wants to eat a cheeseburger. Why shouldn't the kid be able to eat the damn cheeseburger?

 

The issue isn't whether he should or shouldn't. Well, obviously it is to you, but to me, adults are lost causes for the most part. We are who we are, and the principle's an officious jerk, so be it. But we should be teaching kids better lessons, and one of them is that "sometimes life isn't fair."

 

To my knowledge, the ACLU seems to be the only one making it a First Amendment issue. And they have sacrificed, over the years, the privilege of being taken seriously when it comes to First Amendment issues because they are unworkably absolutist about it.

 

Sometimes life isn't fair.

That don't mean you try to use every legal means necessary to make it more fair. Including calling the media.

Like it or not, media is what keeps the powerful a bit more honest than what they would be without a free media. That's why they're protected by the First Amendment.

 

Revolutionary patriots: "King George is taxing us without representation!"
RickStain: "Hey, sometimes life isn't fair."

 

Except if you're a sportswriter. Then you write the good things that happened and ignore the bad. Because the paycheck cashes the same. And that doesn't feed anyone's spoiled, self-important children the wrong message.