Parents Tell Arkansas School: Let Our Daughter Wear Gay T-Shirt

Sommer Collins, a 15-year-old ninth grader in the Forth Smith School District in Arkansas, went to school wearing a rainbow bracelet one day. A teacher caught wind of the bracelet, called it offensive, and made Sommer take the bracelet off.
But don't expect that incident to quiet a 15-year-old with nothing but equality on her mind. Sommer went home, got in touch with her inner-Project Runway contestant, and made a T-shirt that she wore to school the next day. It was essentially a white T-shirt, with some powerful language written on it.
"Support homosexual love," and, "Proud to be a lesbian."
When she showed up at school wearing the shirt, however, teachers and administrators weren't entirely interested in her bold stand for equality and acceptance. Instead, they suspended Sommer for three days, removing her from the classroom and giving her no capacity to make up the school work she'll miss. All for saying that being gay is okay.
The school district is now under fire for not only issuing such a harsh punishment, but for punishing Sommer in the first place for supporting civil rights. You can send a message to the Fort Smith Superintendent here letting him know that this act by the school is way out of line.
And you can also check out a video below where Sommer's parents not only come to bat for her, but tell the school district that they demand change as well. No student, they say, should be punished for being themselves, and for championing equality.
Sommer's parents spoke to MyFox8 in Arkansas about their daughter's fashion sense.
"It is not profane, it is not vulgar, and if it offends somebody, then they need to get over it," Sommer's father David said. He added that the school district's decision to suspend his daughter for the T-shirt was "insane and ridiculous."
The Fox station also had a chance to speak with the Deputy Superintendent for the Fort Smith School District, Gordon Floyd. He said that the school's decision to suspend Sommer for her clothing was appropriate.
"If they refuse to change their clothes, the issue then becomes not what they're wearing, but their response to the direction from the school administrator," Floyd said. Yes, that's right. This is all Sommer's problem because she refused to kowtow to a teacher who thought the words "gay" and "lesbian" were offensive. Wonder what would have happened if Sommer stood up to a teacher who said the world was flat and humans were created from some dude's rib.
Check out the Fox segment below. And if you haven't yet, send a message to the school district letting them know that gay-positive T-shirts don't violate the dress code, and don't violate any sense of decency. The school district would be better off not disrupting the education of a ninth grader, not to mention her classmates, with some old-fashioned homophobia.
 


Photo credit: MyFox8.com video

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