Free Republic

ALBANY -- A Mont Pleasant middle school student is taking her freedom-of-expression fight to federal court, claiming Schenectady school officials have no right to ban her from wearing a handmade red, white and blue necklace to class. The beads, which Raven Furbert got as a string-it-yourself Christmas gift, symbolize love of country and respect for soldiers serving in Iraq, according to the lawsuit her mother, Katie Grzywna, filed in U.S. District Court in Albany. Among those soldiers is her uncle, J. Barnes, who is a member of the Army National Guard's 42nd Rainbow Division, and three other relatives. Barnes shipped...

My daughter orders some baby clothes from this company in Florida. Although she did NOT order the t-shirt in question, she received the following email: From: "Johnnie Boden" To: Subject: Apology Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 16:32:15 -0000 Dear Customer I am writing to apologise. We feature a T shirt in our new Mini Boden catalogue with an image of a toy gun (Sheriff T Shirt). Many of you have contacted us about this. I don't want you to think we are an irresponsible organisation. I founded this company to create clothing ranges that captured a spirit of fun, honesty,...

Father: Teacher duct taped student’s sagging pants The Associated Press DUNLAP, Ind. — The father of a seventh-grader claims an assistant principal came up with a bizarre way to keep his son’s pants from sagging in school: duct tape. Scott Allison told the Concord School Board earlier this month that his 12-year-old son, Spencer, was ordered by a teacher to lift his shirt after she noticed the boy’s underwear was showing above his pants, a violation of Concord Junior High School’s dress code. She sent him to Assistant Principal Patricia Walters, who told Spencer to pull up his pants and...

SHEPHERDSVILLE - A mother has pulled her son out of Bullitt Central High School after protesting what she calls an unfair application of the school's dress code. Lisa Whiteside began pro-testing outside Bullitt Central last week after learning that two Muslim students who had enrolled after winter break had been allowed to wear a hijab, a traditional head scarf that covers the hair and neck. Whiteside said her son, a senior, was given in-school suspension for wearing a white button-down shirt. School board attorney Eric Farris said that school records indicated that the student wasn't disciplined, but he received a...

SOUTH HADLEY - The new dress code at Michael E. Smith Middle School that seeks to limit the amount of skin pupils may bare in class had its genesis last year after some female students fell out of their tops. "We had girls fall out of their shirts in the sixth grade," principal Melodie L. Goodwin said during a recent interview at the school about the code, which takes effect March 21. Some male teachers expressed concern about the amount of flesh being displayed, and Goodwin started gathering input to develop a new dress code "They were a little uncomfortable...

This post will be unusually long. That's because I've decided to use my bandwith today to combat a government agency's self-serving--and dangerous--spin campaign. The great thing about the blogosphere is that I can give over as much space as necessary to others who don't have a voice. And nobody at the Transportation Security Administration, at the Federal Air Marshals Service, or in the White House can stop me. Last week, I wrote a column on the idiotic dress code policy instituted by Thomas Quinn, head of the Federal Air Marshals Service. Quinn promptly dispatched his flack, David M. Adams, to...

CAIR-OH: Suit Over School Ban on 'Islam is a Lie' T-Shirt Source: Columbus Dispatch Click here to view full text ... James Nixon's fashion statement did not go unnoticed on Sept. 1 as he stood at his locker at Sheridan Middle School in Perry County. The front of the seventh-grader's black T-shirt proclaimed in white block letters: "INTOLERANT: Jesus said . . . I am the way, the truth and the life. John 14:6." The back of the T-shirt read: "Homosexuality is a sin, Islam is a lie, abortion is murder. Some issues are just black and white!" Spotted by...

Can you imagine if an al Qaeda bureaucrat had ordered the 19 Sept. 11 terrorists to wear "I heart Osama" T-shirts when they embarked on their murderous flights? No idiot would send his men on a covert mission wearing clothes that would so blatantly give them away, right? Wrong. Meet Federal Air Marshal Service Director Thomas Quinn. The man in charge of our in-flight cops, who are supposed to be spying secretly on would-be terrorist hijackers, refuses to allow his employees to dress undercover. Quinn insists that air marshals abide by military-style grooming standards and a rigid business dress policy...

(AP) It's the latest trend in fall fashion: Workers and students who dress down or show too much skin are being told to button up. Tired of staff members who they see as pushing the limits of professionalism and good taste, a growing number of employers are issuing lengthy dress codes, some with photos to illustrate the do's and don'ts. More schools also are getting stricter about student attire. M.J. Dean, who's starting his senior year Thursday at the private Cape Cod Academy in Osterville, Mass., discovered new rules at his school when he received the updated student handbook this...

SANTEE, Calif. -- Speeding is blamed for a car crash that killed an 18-year-old woman Monday, 10News reported. The California Highway Patrol said Jessica Turner lost control of her red Ford Thunderbird just before 9:30 a.m. on state Route 67 at Woodside Avenue in Santee. The car rolled and Turner was ejected. No one else was in the car. Investigators said Turner was driving between 85 and 90 miles per hour. She was on her way home from school. "Our information is she was sent home for inappropriate dress and was on her way home," CHP officer Brain Pennings said....

WASHINGTON, July 15 — Beards are out. So are jeans and athletic shoes. Suit coats are in, even on the steamiest summer days. That dress code, imposed by the Department of Homeland Security, makes federal air marshals uneasy — and not just because casual clothes are more comfortable in cramped airline seats. The marshals fear that their appearance makes it easier for terrorists to identify them, according to a professional group representing more than 1,300 air marshals. "If a 12-year-old can pick them out, a trained terrorist has no problem picking them out," said John D. Amat, a spokesman...

KEYSER, W.Va. - Administrators at one West Virginia high school have seen enough of pajamas, spiked jewelry and underwear, including the muscle shirts known as "wife beaters." A new dress code bans any attire that could "disrupt the educational process." A committee of students, teachers and administrators at Keyser High School agreed the existing dress code needed some beefing up, Principal John Haines said. Teenagers who wore pajamas and bedroom slippers for dress-up days during Spirit Week, for example, had begun wearing them on regular days, too. Administrators had also had enough of bare bellies and exposed panties. The revised...

MINNEAPOLIS - Employees at Target Corp. headquarters can put their casual clothes back in the closet. The retailer told its 5,000 headquarters employees that it is ending its "business casual" dress code in favor more formal clothes for every weekday except Friday. Beginning Sept. 7, the new rules will include a requirement that men wear a sport coat or tie if they leave their usual work area. They must wear a pressed-collar shirt and tie with any sweater. For women, sweater sets or dressy sweaters are among the acceptable options. Women must wear a jacket over any sleeveless blouses. Violators...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The ACLU is objecting to a ban on sports jerseys, sleeveless shirts and backward baseball caps in Louisville's new nightclub district, saying the dress code is biased against blacks and poor people. The city has given the developer of the month-old Fourth Street Live power to enforce its dress code three nights a week during special events along the block-long stretch restaurants, bars and shops. During those nights, the city street is blocked off, and bouncers decide who does or doesn't meet the dress code. "If the city is going to turn over a public street to...

TEHRAN -- Iran's feared morals police will launch a summer crackdown on Western-style coffee shops and women who flout Islamic dress codes, a newspaper reported on Saturday. Tehran's prosecutor announced last month that a campaign against "social corruption" was under way and Tehranis have complained about an increase in raids on parties. "As summer aproaches, we have decided to confront corruption at cultural and sports centres, video clubs, and coffee shops...that fail to observe the regulations," Tehran Police Chief Morteza Talaei was quoted as saying in the reformist Tosea newspaper. Enforcement of strict rules on women's dress, Western music and...

Principal Washes Dye Out of Kid's Hair Mon Apr 5,10:54 AM ET Add Strange News - AP to My Yahoo! AUBURN, Calif. - It used to be that schoolchildren might get their mouths washed out for using blue language. These days at Pleasant Ridge Elementary School, they're more likely to have their hair washed out — for sporting a blue mohawk. Parents of a 6-year-old boy say they plan to consult an attorney after a school principal washed bright blue dye out of their son's punk-style haircut. Levey Padocs Jr.'s father said he allowed his son to get the distinctive...

<p>MERRILLVILLE, Ind. -- About 100 middle school students wore pink to protest restrictions imposed by school officials concerned that the color was associated with gang activity.</p> <p>The protest Wednesday at Clifford Pierce Middle School resulted in mass wardrobe changes, said Principal James Joiner. Administrators made some students who wore pink shirts replace them with school T-shirts. Several students, anticipating the order to change, brought a second set of clothes to school.</p>

An openly gay teenager recieved a $30,000 settlement from the city over her suspension for wearing a 'Barbie is a Lesbian' T-shirt to school, her attorney announced Thursday. Natalie Young, now 15 and in high school, wore the shirt to middle school in April 2002, leading school officials to send her home for the day despite the absnece of any official dress code. Young was pulled from the class by the school principal and ordered to sit in an office until she changed the shirt.When she refused, she was suspended for the day.Young's lawyer, Ron Kuby, filed the federal suit...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Justice Department announced Tuesday the government's civil rights lawyers have jumped into a legal case to support a Muslim girl's right to wear a head scarf in a public school. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Alex Acosta said government lawyers would support 11-year-old Nashala Hearn, a sixth-grade student who has sued the Muskogee, Oklahoma, Public School District for ordering her to remove her head scarf, or hijab, because it violated the dress code of the Benjamin Franklin Science Academy, which she attended. The girl continued to wear her hijab to school and was subsequently suspended...

T-shirt Controversy Surrounds Caldwell Co. School POSTED: 2:13 pm EST March 23, 2004 UPDATED: 5:56 pm EST March 23, 2004 HUDSON, N.C. -- Racial tensions at South Caldwell High School have prompted a crackdown on T-shirts with the Confederate battle flag on them. Fifteen students were sent home from the school Monday for violating the dress code. Principal Byron Jones says the students ignored a letter sent home last week announcing the crackdown, which began Monday. Jones says the school superintendent and school attorney told him to enforce the rule strictly. The T-shirt worn by 17-year-old South Caldwell student...