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View Full Version : Major Controversy at my old high school!!


catlover79
10-15-2010, 02:18 AM
http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/local_news/willoughby-south-high-school-bans-sale-of-rebel-t-shirt-with-confederate-flag

Willoughby South High School bans sale of rebel t-shirt with Confederate flag

Posted: 10/12/2010

By: Cristin Severance, The Ohio News Network

WILLOUGHBY, Ohio - A t-shirt with an image of a Confederate flag has been banned from being sold at a high school in Lake County.

The mascot for South High School in Willoughby is the "rebel.”

The "Rebel Moms," a non-profit group, designed the T-shirt to sell to students for "spirit week." Spirit week is the week leading up to the big football game between rivals North and South high schools.

The shirt has the word "rebel" on the front with a Confederate flag in the background of the letters.

The “Rebel Moms” have already sold 250 shirts.

School officials told the Ohio News Network that new moms are running the group and didn't know the strict rules against using the Confederate flag.

"You have to be sensitive to students’ needs and to students’ dislikes and what would offend them. There are so many different designs they could have put on the shirt," said Superintendent Keith Miller.

"I was kind of mad because the moms do everything. They support our football team and they help us out with whatever we need," said student Dan Hynd about the ban of the sale.

The "Rebel Moms" and the district came up with a new design for the shirts. They will look like the original shirt, except with solid lettering.

Students are discouraged from wearing the shirts with the image of the Confederate flag, but they will not be punished if they choose to wear the old shirts.

Principal Paul Lombardo said the students didn't do anything wrong by purchasing the original shirts from the "Rebel Moms" at the school spirit shop.

catlover79
10-15-2010, 02:29 AM
Since South High's inception in 1959, the Rebel has been the school mascot. The choir and band would always perform "Dixie". I spent all four years as a SHS student in the choir and we would always sing a soft, a capella version of it at the graduations. The band would play it at the football games among other events. Because ONE parent complained, the principal dropped "Dixie" from all events in 2003, the year my brother graduated. That made MANY South students, past and present, incensed. At least my sister and I got "Dixie" at our commencements (mine was 1998, hers was 2000).

When our long-time principal retired at the end of the 2001-02 school year, that's when things got out of hand with this political correctness. Of course, there was always a bit of controversy about the logo, like the Chief Wahoo of the Cleveland Indians, or the Dixie horn and Confederate flag on the General Lee on Dukes of Hazzard.

Facebook has a big campaign to keep the Rebel as our mascot and people are trying to organize a protest, picket line, etc. in front of the board of education building. I will GLADLY protest!!!

MickeyMac
10-15-2010, 10:17 AM
I think I'll sit this one out.