High School students choice of ties nets him NO DIPLOMA

Yet another school administered by someone that needs to be FIRED!!

From The Washington Post, print edition, page B01 (Metro), June 11, 2005.

Student's choice to wear a bolo tie, to help celebrate his Native American Heritage, nets him NO DIPLOMA at his high school graduation.

Headline is linked.

Montana Leader Defends Bolo Ties

Governor Backs Md. Teen Denied Diploma

By Ann E. Marimow
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 11, 2005; Page B01

"In Montana and anyplace in Indian country, a bolo tie is dressed up. A tie is a tie," Gov. Brian Schweitzer says. (Photo credit: Office Of Gov. Brian Schweitzer)

A Charles County {Maryland} high school's decision to deny a diploma to a senior who wore a bolo tie to graduation didn't offend just the student and his family. Montana's governor is mighty annoyed, too.
"To have some high school say that a bolo tie is not a tie is an outrage," said Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D), who called The Washington Post yesterday after reading an article about 17-year-old Thomas Benya.
"In Montana and anyplace in Indian country, a bolo tie is dressed up," he said. "A tie is a tie."
Schweitzer, who has a collection of more than 30 string ties, called to encourage Benya yesterday and is sending him a Montana state bolo.
The Waldorf teenager first wore his black, braided tie to a graduation rehearsal Tuesday as a symbol of his Native American roots. His paternal grandmother's father and grandfather were born on a Cherokee reservation in Oklahoma.
But the principal at Maurice J. McDonough High School said the skinny tie with a silver clasp did not meet the school's definition of a tie. Benya wore it anyway. When he tried to collect his diploma after the ceremony Wednesday, he was told to schedule a conference with school administrators. Benya's parents said they are waiting for an apology from the school system.
The question of whether a bolo tie is a tie has been tricky to navigate, even in Western states where they are common attire. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D), for instance, often wears one during television interviews. But in that state's legislature, the coat-and-tie requirement allows string ties on the floor of the Senate but not the House.
Former Colorado senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, an American Indian and a jewelry designer, is perhaps one of the most well known bolo boosters. He said yesterday he remembers asking then-House Speaker Jim Wright for permission to break with tradition in 1987.
"It was never contested. No one ever complained," Campbell said.
"It seems to me that if the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Senate give latitude to members of the highest body in the land, a high school shouldn't be so uptight to deny a kid his cultural right to wear a different type of neckwear," he said.
The school system might reconsider the bolo's status for the next graduation.
"Do I think the schools might take a look at it next year? Sure. Will they change it? I don't know," system spokeswoman Katie O'Malley-Simpson said. "The incident will give principals something to think about."

The original article about this miscarriage of fairness and justice is found in the following Washington Post article. Again, headline is linked.

Cultural Tie Gets in the Way Of Graduation

Md. Boy Wearing Bolo Is Denied a Diploma

By Ann E. Marimow
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 10, 2005; Page B01

Thomas Benya says the bolo tie he wore to graduation for Charles County's McDonough High School reflects his heritage. (Photo Credit: By Mark Gail -- The Washington Post)

Thomas Benya wore a braided bolo tie under his purple graduation gown this week as a subtle tribute to his Native American heritage.
Administrators at his Charles County school decided the string tie was too skinny. They denied him his diploma, at least temporarily, as punishment.
The bolo, common in contemporary American Indian culture, is not considered a tie by his public school in Pomfret. If Benya wants the diploma, he will have to schedule a conference with the administrators.
What his parents say they want is an apology from Maurice J. McDonough High School for embarrassing their son and failing to respect the Cherokee background of his father's ancestors.
"The schools in Charles County are asking him to ignore his heritage," Marsha Benya said as she turned to face her 17-year-old son. "I want you to be proud of it."
"I am proud of it," he said, sitting in her real estate office in Waldorf, where he plans to work this summer before enrolling at the College of Southern Maryland.
The high school is sticking to its policy. The dress code is mandatory for seniors who choose to participate in the graduation ceremony. And Benya was told during a dress rehearsal Tuesday that his black bolo with a silver and onyx clasp the size of a silver dollar was "not acceptable."
"We have many students with many different cultural heritages, and there are many times to display that," said school district spokeswoman Katie O'Malley-Simpson.
"But graduation is a time when we have a formal, uniform celebration. If kids are going to participate, they need to respect the rules."
Controversies over student attire at graduation are perennial, and school districts try to avoid confusion by sending letters to parents and seniors months in advance. In Prince George's County, for example, graduating seniors are told "they are not to wear any kind of additional accents," said schools spokesman John White.
"We set the standard to make sure all our ceremonies are formal and respectful," he said.
In March, Benya's high school sent a letter to parents and seniors explaining that "adherence to the dress code is mandatory," with the word mandatory in bold and underlined. For girls: white dresses or skirts with white blouses. For boys: dark dress pants with white dress shirts and ties. That left Benya's classmates free to wear bright orange, red and striped ties under their gowns at the ceremony Wednesday at the Show Place Arena in Upper Marlboro. One senior girl wore a headscarf and long pants for religious reasons. "The First Amendment protects religion, and we do everything possible to honor that," O'Malley-Simpson said. "There is nothing that requires us to follow everyone's different cultures."

... emphasis added

.... more at both linked articles

Notice the emphasized section above -- it gives away exactly what the problem is: we have school administrators that want to behave like Gestapo and insist that our children must be little automatons that must look alike, sound alike, behave alike, etc. (Worse yet, most of them want those students to be programmed as liberals that will support their public schools and educational system, with it's biases towards liberalism, but that's a subject for a different article).

I have mixed feelings on the desire to make things uniform in schools, as I actually support the use of uniforms for most schools. Uniforms in schools tend to keep down some problems, and make things easier on parents who are left with only having to worry about washing the uniform, rather than making sure their kids aren't going to school wearing gang colors or wearing clothing with objectionable messages.

But some common sense and reason must be applied to enforcing policies like this. Do we really want to make school graduations about the uniform? About the pomp and circumstance?

I'm reminded of my own daughter's recent "advancement ceremony" when she was to be leaving elementary school and moving on to middle school. The Principal, known very well as a dictatorial type, deemed that clapping, cheering, hooting and hollering during the ceremony would cause the entire program to be stopped immediately. Can't have a celebration really be a celebration. Never mind letting our children know that we're happy and proud of and for them. Doing that would ruin the atmosphere. Someone that didn't get cheered for might feel bad. I so wanted to just let out a few boos and cat calls at the "congratulatory celebration" that was added in when other school employees "recognized" the fact that the Principal was leaving the school and moving on to another location. I'm sure that those employees really were overjoyed at the thought that wicked witch was being sent away.

In anycase, the pictures above speak volumes. Are these "ties" acceptable? Does the school system owe this student and his family (and hell, for that matter, all Native American's) an apology? You betcha!

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