School: National Guard T-shirt violates dress code

Posted 2014-09-28 01:48 by admin

A New York Army National Guard recruiter left a high school south of Albany on Sept. 19 after giving out T-shirts bearing the image of a soldier pointing a rifle — an image school officials said violated the dress code.

Officials with Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk Central Schools and the Guard say there is no ill will over the matter — the recruiter, who wasn’t asked to leave by school officials, returned the next week to speak with students who’d accepted the shirts, and recruiters will be on hand at tonight’s homecoming football game, at the request of the school, to hand out T-shirts with different logos.

That didn’t stop a deluge of emails and phone calls to RCS interim superintendent Alan McCartney’s office after news of the incident broke — some supporting his defense of a dress code that bans images that “encourage … violent activities,” and others, he said, with the message of, “ ‘You guys are a bunch of morons.’ And I’m being kind when I say that.”

The school did not discipline any students that wore the shirt, nor did school officials ask the students to remove them, McCartney said in a statement to Army Times. Students were asked not to wear the shirts to school in the future.

“The recruiter should have known he cannot give shirts out with an image of someone using a weapon on it in a [New York State] public high school,” according to the statement.

Adding to the confusion: The shirts are “new to the inventory” for the New York Army National Guard, said Eric Durr, director of public affairs for the New York State Division of Military and Naval Affairs. McCartney said other school districts have requested the Guard not distribute shirts with that design in their schools; Durr said his office hadn’t been made aware of such requests, but that the decentralized nature of Guard recruiting means it’s possible local recruiters were asked about the design and didn’t report the request to the state office.

Also adding to the confusion: The dress code doesn’t specifically ban pictures of firearms on garments, leaving the matter subject to interpretation. While some teachers took issue with the National Guard design and McCartney agreed with their interpretation of the rules, he said a T-shirt displaying the iconic National Guard logo featuring a Minuteman would’ve been acceptable.

“The issue is not necessarily about a gun on a tee shirt,” school district communications officer Bob Hanlon wrote in an email. “If this had been a depiction of the Fife and Drum Corp[s], or something like that, it would have been less of an issue.”

Both Hanlon and McCartney said of all the feedback the school has received on the issue, no parents have suggested modifications to the dress code.

“We’re not anti-military,” McCartney said. “Sometimes you have a fringe element in the community that just wants to create an issue… In the wake of stuff that’s happened in [Newtown,] Connecticut, all over the country, this is something something public high schools are very, very sensitive about.”

The New York Army National Guard’s offices found out about the incident Tuesday after receiving a call from a local TV station, Durr said.

“There’s a difference between violent crimes and people who serve us, to keep us safe, to keep our freedom,” parent Jennifer Delisle told CBS-6 in the report. Emails and Facebook messages to Delisle weren’t immediately returned.

While there have been issues with recruiting at high schools in the past, Durr said he was not aware of any similar wardrobe-related incidents.

“We obviously do not want to do anything that violates the school district’s policy,” he said. “The Ravena-Coyemans-Selkirk school district has been very supportive. They welcome our recruiters into the school. We have a very good relationship. We appreciate that relationship, and we respect the policies of each individual school district.”