Freedom of Speech but Watch What You Say

[CrimsonTide4]

Principal Asks Student
To Cover Anti-War T-Shirt
3-12-3

MARSHFIELD, Mass. (Reuters) - A Massachusetts student who wore an anti-war T-shirt to school was asked by his principal to cover it up while lawyers checked whether it was allowed under school rules, the pupil said on Tuesday.

Chris Little, 15, scrawled the words "Who would Jesus bomb?" in green ink on a white T-shirt and sported it at Marshfield High School on Monday.

Midway through the day, Little was hauled into the office of Principal Peter Deftos. The principal asked the student to cover up the T-shirt with a sweatshirt while he checked with school lawyers to see if it was permissible.

Deftos informed Little on Tuesday morning that he could wear the T-shirt -- defusing a potential free-speech controversy.

"He wanted to check that it was OK for me to wear something like that -- that it wasn't infringing on anyone's rights," Little told Reuters.

"He's letting me wear it now," he said. "It was never a question of him disciplining me -- he was just doing his job."

Neither Deftos nor Marshfield Public Schools Superintendent Thomas Kelley returned phone calls seeking comment.

The incident at Marshfield High School came a week after a lawyer was arrested at a public mall near Albany, New York after he refused to take off a "Give Peace a Chance" T-shirt he had just purchased at the mall. Charges against the man were eventually dropped.

U.S. and British preparations for a possible war in Iraq have generated widespread international opposition, with millions of people around the world taking part in anti-war demonstrations over the past month.



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[carolyne]

I can't believe they actually arrested a grown a** man for wearing a shirt in the mall! That is ridiculous! I'm going to go buy an anti-war shirt and DARE someone to say something to me. The was is STUPID- plain and simple.