-By Warner Todd Huston
A Florida middle school demanded that a student remove a t-shirt from the Duck Dynasty TV show emblazoned with the word “redneck” across it claiming it was “offensive.”
Bronwyn Ramsey’s 14-year-old son, Christopher Olsen, was forced to remove the shirt at Mandarin Middle School in Jacksonville, FL because, the school said, it violated the school’s code of conduct rules. It was the big word “redneck” to which the school objected.
The t-shirt, which features a large image of Robinson family leader Phil Robinson and the words “redneck of the year,” is available in practically any department store these days.
Christopher was told that the word is offensive and school officials called his mother to bring him a new shirt. But the family says they don’t find the word “redneck” offensive at all.
“I personally didn’t feel like it was negative,” Christopher’s mother said to Jacksonville News 4. “I mean, redneck to me is a hard working person from back in the day. It’s a culture, it’s a way of life and I just didn’t feel like that should be a slur, be labeled a slur.”
“If anything we work hard to instill good moral values and family values in our children and to me, this was almost like a slap in the face,” Ramsey said.
Since the media picked up on the story, the principal has reversed the initial decision and told the boy that his shirt does not violate any rules and that he is free to wear it again.
“School educators and administration use the code of conduct as a tool to guide decisions regarding the school environment,” said Duval County Public School District spokeswoman Tia Ford.
Well, just another overreaction from another public school, isn’t it? Maybe homeschoolers have the right idea.
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, MrConservative.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.
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