DEARBORN -- A Dearborn High School junior was sent home from
school this week for wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with an anti-war
message.
Bretton Barber, 16, said he wanted to express his opinion Monday when
he wore a T-shirt he bought over the Internet that shows a picture of
President Bush and reads, "International Terrorist."
Concerned the shirt could spark tensions in a district where more
than 50 percent of students are Arab-American, school officials told
Barber to turn the shirt inside out, take it off or go home.
Barber said he decided to go home rather than surrender his freedom
of expression. He returned to school Tuesday without the shirt.
"Bush has already killed over 1,000 people in Afghanistan -- that's
terrorism in itself," said Barber, noting he wore the shirt for a
presentation he made that morning in English class. The assignment was
to write a "compare and contrast" essay -- and he chose to compare Bush
with Saddam Hussein.
Dearborn Public Schools spokesman Dave Mustonen said students have
the right to freedom of speech and expression, but educators are
sensitive to tensions caused by the conflict with Iraq.
"It was felt that emotions are running very high," said Mustonen.
"The shirt posed a potential disruption to the learning environment at
the school. Our No. 1 obligation is to make sure we have a safe learning
environment for all of the students."
Mustonen said the incident had nothing to do with the many
Arab-Americans in the 17,600-student district.
Officials said they don't know how many Arab-American students are
enrolled in the district, but in 2000, they estimated the figure at
about 55 percent.
Imad Hamad of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee thinks
school officials took the right approach. He hopes they'll take it one
step further and use the experience to educate students on how to
exercise freedoms in positive ways.
"I see no winner here," Hamad said. "The school did the right thing
to diffuse any potential conflict among the student population. I assume
they would do the same thing if another message was displayed that was
offensive to a different culture.
"Sometimes our very precious freedom of speech is used to justify
spreading hatred or to display our bigotry. I see this as a good
opportunity for the school to guide students through this issue or to
help our youngsters to understand our tough circumstances and to
encourage them in positive and constructive debate."
Junior Lindsey Hoganson, 16, thinks students can handle discussions
about today's political climate without passions rising. She disagrees
with the school's decision not to allow the shirt.
"I didn't hear anybody say anything about the shirt until we heard
the administration was making him change it," she said. "A lot of people
are worried about the war. We talk about it at school a lot. Talking
about it isn't going to disturb the learning environment, because the
topic's already been brought up in school. (Barber) was just giving
people a different way of looking at it."
Barber's parents support their son's decision to express his views at
school.
"It didn't cause any problems at the school, and I think he has a
right to wear his T-shirt," said his mom, Tricia Barber.
Barber said he isn't giving up on expressing his views.
"I'm putting a group together at the high school, and working on
putting a march together," he said. "It's hard to do it through the
school because you need a teacher to support it, but I'm going to try."
You can reach Karen Bouffard at (313) 561-9646 or mailto:kbouffard@detnews.com
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