Student Michelle Ramirez, Kirkwood Middle
School Administrators Argue Over Dress Code

From the Huffington Post news wire:

Michelle Ramirez, a student at North Kirkwood Middle School, wore a shirt to class that read:

"JESUS, HE SCARES THE HELL OUT OF YOU."

She was told to change into a different shirts, as school administrators thought the use of the phrase "the hell" encouraged a slang connotation, which is against school policy.

Ramirez maintains that she used the term literally, to communicate her religious beliefs.

More here.

School dress codes, being generally absurd, tend to create really stupid arguments.

Just for context, this appears to be pretty much open and shut. This little Jesus girl, Ramirez, has an absolute right to express her views in this non-disruptive way, especially considering that this is a religious view, giving her double protection under the first amendment for both freedom of worship and freedom of speech. I mean, kids lose some civil rights when they walk into the school building, but certainly not all of them. She's solid, I'm pretty sure, if she sues or brings in the ACLU, which usually scares the shit out of school administrators. And that's a good thing.

But look at the school's argument in the excerpt above: "the phrase 'the hell' encouraged a slang connotation." WTF? So what? It's a double entendre, you know, the kind of literary device that educators ought to be overjoyed to see students using. But no, a rule's a rule, and all that stupid school disciplinary shit.

And because the school makes a stupid fucking argument to support a stupid fucking rule, enforced in a stupid fucking way, the girl and her mother respond with an equally stupid argument: "she used the term literally." Well yes, she did, but she also made use of the "slang" sense of the phrase, too, in order to get people to pay attention. That's what double entendre is all about. The Ramirezes shouldn't have engaged administrators in their stupid fucking argument on its own stupid fucking terms. Instead, they should have just called on the first amendment.

But this is no surprise: school makes people stupid.

It's like I've said here a billion times. Because the overwhelming emphasis of the American school system is discipline, usually to the exclusion of all other concerns, "teachable moments" like this one often go down the drain, along with logic and reason. And people routinely get into genuine fucktard territory when they could be having a rational discussion. I mean, if you click through and watch the video, you see the school's principal talking about how the shirt might cause a "disruption" in its use of the phrase "the hell"--teachers and school officials love to talk about "disruption" and "distraction;" it's a catch-all that will get you busted for whatever they want to bust you for. Never mind that the "disruption" argument is bullshit; first amendment rights trump such behavioral theory, which has nothing to do with real life--I mean seriously, the shirt's going to drive kids wild? Yeah right.

Once again, I defend a point of view with which I totally disagree. Damned Christians.

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