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Date Posted: 13:15:29 03/05/03 Wed
Author: NKLS Cody
Subject: From the schools now to the malls...
In reply to: OPB 's message, "This is insane: man arrested for wearing a T-shirt" on 08:38:09 03/05/03 Wed

... we are quickly losing our rights to free speech. Apparently, if somebody is sending out the "wrong" message, they can be threatened by those who are in control of their tiny fiefdoms. More protests of this type and, of course this are needed, not suppression of one's dissent for some random and immoral oil war.

Anti-Bush T-shirt banned at Michigan school with high concentration of Arab-Americans


Wed Feb 19,11:54 AM ET

DEARBORN, Michigan - School officials ordered a 16-year-old to either take off a T-shirt emblazoned with the words "International Terrorist" and a picture of President George W. Bush or go home, saying they worried it would inflame passions at the school where a majority of students are Arab-American.

The student, Bretton Barber, chose to go home. He said he wore the shirt Monday to express his anti-war position and for a class assignment in which he wrote a compare-contrast essay on Bush and Iraq President Saddam Hussein.

Schools spokesman Dave Mustonen said students have the right to freedom of expression, but educators are sensitive to tensions caused by the conflict with Iraq.

"It was felt that emotions are running very high," Mustonen said.

Dearborn is the center of an Arab-American community of about 300,000 in southeastern Michigan. About 55 percent of the district's 17,600 students are Arab-American.


Ill. Teen Suspended Over T-Shirt Flap


Mon Mar 3, 5:47 AM ET

CHICAGO RIDGE, Ill. - An eighth grader has been suspended from school for wearing a T-shirt with a drawing of two towers, an airplane and a man in traditional Arab headdress.

Officials at Finley Junior High School in Chicago Ridge, a suburb west of Chicago, told Ian Itani's mother in a letter that the 14-year-old's decision to wear the T-shirt "could be taken as a promotion of terrorism."

Colleen Itani said her son, whose father is of Lebanese descent, was simply trying to send a message that all Arabs are not responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Ian Itani was suspended Feb. 19. Superintendent Bernard Jumbeck declined to comment, citing student privacy policies.

The boy got the idea after listening to jeers from his classmates following the attacks, Colleen Itani said. He used a black marker to draw two skyscrapers and an airplane on the front of the shirt, and a bearded man wearing a headdress on the back.

"Everywhere I go people call us camels because of what happened," Ian Itani said. "So I put (the drawing) on my shirt to tell them who did it and to say that me and my Arab friends didn't do it."

The Itanis say they are considering suing the school for violating the boy's right to free speech.

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