By TIM COOK
The Journal
INWOOD, W.Va. — Lisa Campbell said she and her 15-year-old son did not intend to offend anyone.
She said the gray T-shirt her son wore to school was about an action-comedy television show he enjoyed, and not making a political statement — including about the Civil War or slavery.
(Submitted photo)
Late last week, Campbell’s son Kyle was asked to cover the “Last Stand” decals on his “Dukes of Hazzard” shirt by turning it inside out.
“It’s ridiculous,” Campbell said, a mother of two students at Musselman High School in Inwood. “We’re pacifying people too much.
We’re bending rules and making everybody else feel comfortable to be politically correct.”
Berkeley County Schools administrators also said they weren’t making a political statement by applying a longstanding but broad dress code policy to avoid potential classroom distractions. Administrators said they backed a history teacher’s decision.
A decal covering the front-left chest of Kyle’s commemorative shirt reads “Cooter’s Last Stand” in white letters, with “Last Stand” positioned on one bar of an X and white stars in the second bar. The X of the “Last Stand” graphic was repeated across the entire back of the shirt.
“It’s obvious that that has the potential to cause problems or distractions in the classroom,” said Berkeley County Schools Superintendent Manny Arvon.
However, Campbell said the “Last Stand” on the shirt refers to the last tour that living cast members of the TV show were supposed to be appearing together, not the Confederate flag or its associated “Rebel Cross.” After an administrator checked a website selling the same “Last Stand” shirt as a “Rebel Cross” shirt, however, Kyle was told not to wear the shirt to classes again. If he did, he would be disciplined.
Campbell — who purchased the shirt for her son at a “Dukes of Hazzard”commemorative festival in Luray, Virginia that drew 25,000 people last month — said the incident is a case of overwrought political correctness. Even in the wake of this month’s deadly political protests over Civil War monuments in Charlottesville, Virginia, she said the county’s school administrators are too concerned over how someone might react by misinterpreting the shirt as an endorsement of the Confederate battle flag.
The website selling the T-shirt Campbell purchased for her son at the festival listed the shirt as a “Cooter’s Last Stand–Rebel Cross T-Shirt,” which was on sale Friday for $9.99. The website’s merchandise options for the event include a tab featuring “Back to School” clothing that include T-shirts displaying the Rebel Flag, including one featuring the General Lee race car pictured with a Rebel Flag in the background.
“My son’s shirt was not the Confederate flag,” Campbell said. “We can take anything we want and change it into something offensive, and that’s what they’ve done here.
“I think the school board is going a little bit overboard on their gray area,” she added. “My problem is the gray area– ‘It could be taken the wrong way.’ That’s what I’m not liking. That’s what my issue is.”
Campbell acknowledges that her son had no problem with the teacher’s request to turn his shirt inside out. He arrived home joking about the incident, she said.
“He’s a big Civil War fanatic. ‘Abraham Lincoln is a hero because he freed the slaves,’” she said of her son’s views. “He has no problem with (covering up his shirt decals). I’m the one who had a problem with it.”
Arvon dismissed the complaint of any hypersensitive political correctness involved in the matter.
“Our focus is strictly educating our children,” Arvon said of the dress code decision. “It’s real simple. I want the school to be a place of learning so it’s not a disruptive environment.
“Our foundation is ‘accountability, integrity and respect,’” he added of a motto used and frequently cited by the school system. “If everybody does that, then we are not even having this conversation.”
The student dress code posted on the Berkeley County Schools’ website states the policy was created so that students’ attire doesn’t distract from learning. The dress code bans students from wearing any “derogatory or ethnic symbols that causes [sic] a disruption” or “language or symbols that offend, demean or promote hatred towards any identifiable person or group.”
The dress code also says a school’s administrator reserves the right to approve or disapprove any clothing expressly addressed in the policy.
Arvon pointed out that the broad diversity of the county school system that serves 19,500 students with 1,600 teachers and 3,600 employees. Ensuring that everyone in the system feels respected and welcome in the system is an important reason it enforces a flexible dress code with sensitivity and care, he said.
“There’s just a lot to consider when you run a district of this size,” Arvon said. “It’s so difficult today to ensure and instruct and make sure our children are leaving our schools with the great skills. We work really hard to have a first-class school system.”
A 43-year veteran of the school system, including 21 years as superintendent, Arvon said the same dress code policy has been applied with reasonable discretion and common sense for decades through various trends, fads and changing social morays. He remembers the 1970s when students were asked to take off or cover shirts with marijuana images and symbols.
“This isn’t anything new,” he said. “It isn’t a policy that has been written in the past few years.”
As a school administrator, Arvon kept a closet of alternative shirts for students who needed to cover up a design or slogan. “And we do it in a very respectful way,” he said of when a student is asked to cover up a shirt or other item of clothing.
Arvon said the school system reviews its decisions all the time, and is continually open to making adjustments or corrections whenever necessary in matters that require judgment on case-by-case basis. He also said the schools district’s dress code certainly doesn’t infringe on any student’s First Amendment expression outside of school.
“When they get home, they can parade up and down the street with” any item of clothing the doesn’t meet the school system’s code, he said.
However, Campbell said she thinks Berkeley school administrators pick certain images or symbols as potentially offensive but overlook other images or symbols. She said she sees students wearing gay pride images on shirts that aren’t covered up — symbols and expressions she has no problem with herself, she said.
Campbell pointed out Musselman High’s Facebook page showed one parent’s first day of school picture of a daughter wearing jeans with slashed-like holes, a current fashion trend, but also a dress code violation for the school district. She contended even cheerleader outfits don’t conform to the dress code, a point Arvon disputed.
“Their suitable for the events that they’re in,” he said of cheerleader outfits issued to students.
Campbell said her concern is how overblown, one-sided political correctness is stifling open discussion about events in history, including about the Civil War, slavery and the Confederacy.
“The Confederate flag is a part of history, not a part of slavery,” she said.
“We as a people need to quit pacifying and let history go,” Campbell said. “This is a new generation. Let’s teach them not to be offended.”
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