Nathan Warmack poses in the living room of his home
in Jackson, Mo. (AP Photo/James A. Finley)
Posted on 12/22/2005 3:36:45 PM PST by Clive
Nathan Warmack poses in the living room of his home
in Jackson, Mo. (AP Photo/James A. Finley)
JACKSON, Mo. (AP) — Nathan Warmack wanted to honour his heritage by wearing a Scottish kilt to his high school dance. Then a principal told him to change into a pair of pants.
What began with a few yards of tartan has sparked an international debate about freedom, symbols and cultural dress. More than 1,600 people have signed an Internet petition seeking an apology for the high school senior.
Scots in the United States are assembling a traditional ensemble they hope the student will wear to the prom, and his family is trying to change the school’s dress code policy.
“It’s a kilt. It’s going to turn heads, but I never believed it would have become what it is,” Warmack said.
Other schools around the country also have wrestled with the issue. A principal in Victoria, Texas, ordered two boys into “more appropriate” attire when they wore kilts to school in 1992, saying: “I know kilts. Those weren’t kilts and the boys aren’t Scots.”
In 1993, a student in Fayette County, Ga., was not allowed to enter his prom at McIntosh High School because he showed up in a kilt and refused to change clothes.
And while they weren’t trying to dress in kilts, a few boys were allowed to wear skirts to class at Franklin Community High School in Indiana in 1997, when a superintendent said different people express themselves in different ways.
Warmack, a defensive lineman on the football team, lives in Jackson, a growing, largely middle-class city of about 14,000 people about 175 kilometres southeast of St. Louis.
He became interested in his family’s Scottish ties after seeing Mel Gibson’s 1995 movie Braveheart, about William Wallace’s battle to overthrow English rule in 13th century Scotland. Warmack reads books about Scotland and visits websites to learn more about his family’s genealogy.
He bought a kilt off the Internet to wear to his school’s formal dance in November. Warmack said he showed it to a vice-principal before the dance, who joked he’d better wear something underneath it, and Warmack assured him he would.
Warmack’s parents, Terry and Paula, helped him piece together the rest of his outfit, a white shirt and black tie with white socks and black boots.
“We wanted it to be acceptable for the occasion,” Terry Warmack said.
After Nathan Warmack and his date posed for pictures, principal Rick McClard, who had not previously seen the kilt, told the student he had to go change. Warmack refused a few times and said the outfit was recognizing his heritage.
Warmack alleges McClard told him: “Well, this is my dance, and I’m not going to have students coming into it looking like clowns.” McClard later said he had no recollection of saying that, Warmack’s dad said. The principal did not return phone calls seeking comment.
The school district’s superintendent, Ron Anderson, said McClard has the authority under the district’s dress code policy to judge appropriate dress for extracurricular activities, including dances.
“It’s mainly to protect from the possibility of a disruption or something that could be viewed as a disruption,” Anderson said.
Several Scottish heritage organizations are angry, saying the kilt is a symbol of Scottish pride and considered formal dress.
“To say the traditional Scottish dress makes you look like a clown is a direct insult to people of Scottish heritage and those who live in Scotland,” said Tom Wilson, a Texas commissioner for the Clan Gunn Society of North American, a Scottish heritage organization.
Another Clan Gunn member, Beth Gardner, started an online petition seeking an apology for Warmack. It questions in part the notion that the kilt was a distraction.
“From what? From the intense concentration it takes to dance?”
Scottish groups are hoping they can help him to establish a formal Scottish ensemble that more fully reflects his heritage, including pieces that are being handmade for Warmack in Oklahoma, Georgia and Florida.
I am just imagining when every ethnic and minority group wants to dress to honor their races.
Doo-rags, gold lame' burqas, "Stop Snitchin'" shirts, baggy pants. Dress code is dress code. Honor it or change schools.
And there is no regiment on earth that would allow him into a regimental ball.
No sporran, no kilt pin, no formal jacket, no formal shirt, No jabot and cuffs, no kilt hose and garter flashes, no ghillie brogues.
(I wouldn't insist of a sgien dubh and probably the headmaster would not allow it)
;)
Here's the rule: if a boy is wear something with one lower opening for his two legs, it must be made from 8 yards of 13-16 ounce wool, woven in a pattern associated with one of the Scottish clans, and amply pleated.
What about when Tahitian girls want to, um...
Said he had on "white shirt and black tie with white socks and black boots."
Good enough for me.
I'm not Scottish, but Kilts are much nicer looking than that. That thing looks like the blanket that was hanging on the back of granny's old couch in her basement until mom cut it up and sewed a button on it.
Our local kids can wear kilts to school and do, but then we have a Pipe and Drum marching band and a yearly Caledonian Celebration along with sheep dog trials.
Braveheart made kilts popular, that's for sure.
Bullsh*t.
He oughta just admit it's a statement to compensate for his obvious lack of charisma.
If the vice-principal had already seen it - and not objected - then it really wasn't fair of the principal to kick him out. I understand the need for dress codes - believe me - the schools I went to had VERY strict dress codes. But this WAS just a dance for pete's sake!
I think it will be nice if those who are willing to help him get a full formal set up going for him.
We had an older gentleman who wore his kilt to the office every halloween - the whole outfit - was pretty nifty actually. He also would wear it on other occasions as well.
A previous story about this showed him in a picture with his girlfriend. He wore the kilt, a white shirt, black tie and black boots. She wore a simple black dress with spaghetti straps.
The story went on to say how he had "saved up the money to buy the kilt". They don't come cheap and, one must assume, that he purchased the kilt from an authorized outlet of his clan in Scotland.
I think we need to evaluate his reasons for wanting to wear the kilt. He wasn't trying to make a statement, he wanted to honor his heritage which he had spent four years researching.
If you are kilted up for the ball, you need to be in full and proper kit.
After reading about the cigarette law of Scotland on another post, I'd be embarrassed to even mentioned the fact if I had Scotish blood.
Now here's a kilt!
"It is? In that case, he looks like a clown."
D'accord.
But that picture does not show "traditional Scottish dress".
What about the nudists?
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