Pay attention!
By Becci Robbins

Tonight we got a call from Jennifer Tague seeking counsel after her son, Tommy, was muzzled today on the grounds of Dutch Fork High School in Columbia.

Tommy Gordon is a 14-year-old in the 9th grade. He has uppity roots. His grandmother is Harriet Hancock, the Columbia lawyer and longtime Network member and gay rights activist who has been shaking up the state’s homophobic and closeted communities since her son came out in the ’80s, when it was still dangerous to so. It’s still a harsh culture for gay folks, but is much less so over the past decades in large part because of Harriet and others who have made it their life’s work to seek parity and respect for all people.

That’s just background for this account of the incident, along with a photo of a friend (his political polar opposite) sporting her message:

today at school a lot of kids who are pro-life wore shirts reflecting that view (shirts with big red lettering that says PRO LIFE, SILENCED FOR THOSE WHO WILL BE SILENCED or things of that nature.). i heard that kids were doing this so i made myself a Pro-Choice shirt that reads:

pro life is sexist. a woman should have the right to choose what she does with her body.

i was stopped while i was walking toward my first class of the day by an administrator who said: “We don’t do that here! Go to the office and change your shirt now!” and was forced to put a bright-orange shirt on with the words “Today I Violated The Dutch Fork High School Dress Code”.

i understood and wore the shirt all day. meanwhile the people who were wearing their Pro-Life shirts did not have to censor their shirts. i was deeply humiliated to have to wear this shirt that marked me as a rule-breaker while other kids who had done the same thing as i, but held different views about the issue than i did, were allowed to continue wearing their shirts.

my mom told me to email you about this.

thanks!

Tommy Gordon

this is an example of what the pro life people were wearing today. its a picture of my friend alix, in her pro life shirt, taken from her myspace site. the lettering on the shirt is backwards because the picture was taken with a camera phone.

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While it’s no surprise that Tommy has decided to make waves at Dutch Fork, my favorite part of the story is that, after wearing the dreaded orange tee all day, he was allowed to take it off during 6th Period, when his teacher instructed him that as long as there was a pro-choice shirt being worn in the classroom (there was) there would be equal exposure for tees of a different political hue. Kudos to Mr. Geliske.

Profound thanks to the good professor, who understands that democracy is not a spectator sport. And hats off to Tommy and Alix, who understand that friendship trumps ideology.

We could all learn something here.