A student should have the right to wear a BLM shirt
I was once banned from witnessing my high school’s basketball games.
Yep. Banned. Given the ol’ heave-ho.
What was my crime? Well, according to the administration of Parsippany High School, led by my arch-nemesis, Principal Melvin Zirkes, it was because myself and a few others nearly incited a riot during an away game at West Essex. See, us Parsippany fans were a rowdy bunch, kind of like Duke’s Cameron Crazies. If memory serves, we broke out the newspapers when the home team’s cheerleading squad came out at halftime, dozens of us rattling through the papers while covering our faces. The West Essex football team, in the stands and apparently the protectors of the cheerleaders, took offense and challenged us to a rumble of sorts. We were eventually escorted out by police.
Anyway, it was BS we got banned. We were just having fun, it was the other guys that nearly incited the riot.
Best part though? Friends of ours who didn’t get banned decided to exercise their First Amendment rights. They chanted our names during the next game. They even made Tshirts, emblazoned with “Bring back {insert last name}.
My arch-nemesis, the principal, threatened to ban anyone who wore the shirts.
Stupid story, right? Well it’s the same, in principle, to what’s happening to Destiny Adams, a 17-year-old Manchester High School senior. She’s a top women’s basketball player, heavily recruited, headed to the University of North Carolina in the fall.
And she recently found herself in hot water for wanting to wear a “Black Lives Matter” shirt during warmups.
Adams was told she had to appeal to the school’s administration as to whether she was able to wear the shirt. In the end, she had to go before the school board of her hometown to plead her case.
“To me, Black Lives Matter has nothing to do with the police,” Adams said to the board, according to a Patch.com article. “I have nothing against the police. It’s just that our lives cannot and will not matter until Black lives do.”
Furthermore, the team’s players pay for their own warmup shirts.
Furthermore, let’s not make this about your opinion of Black Lives Matter; let’s just make this about that pesky First Amendment.
So of course, the school board of Manchester Township made the right call, right? Ha.
The voted 7-0 against Adams. They didn’t even discuss it. Adams spoke, the board voted, and that was that.
“She felt the board didn’t really listen to what she was saying,” her mom, Lisa Adams, said, according to the article. “They didn’t suggest any alternative, they didn’t have a discussion. It was clear they had already made a decision.”
This does not sit well with me, and again, it has nothing to do with Black Lives Matter. This has to do with a person’s First Amendment rights, and Adams’ certainly seem to be being trampled on.
Now I get it: Schools are schools, yadda yadda yadda. But this isn’t a private school or a private business where they can make their own decisions about what is appropriate to wear or not to wear. This is a taxpayer-funded operation, and last I checked, places like that certainly can’t dictate what words I decide to have on my shirt, especially if they’re not going against traditional community standards.
I really, truly, hope Adams decides to forgo the board’s stupid decision and wear the warmup shirt. I hope her teammates do as well. I hope the opposing players do as well. I hope every single public high school basketball player in New Jersey does the same. This can quickly - and should become a First Amendment issue.
This is not a Black vs. White issue, not a police issue, not anything but allowing Americans the right to express themselves. What a terrible job by the school board. She should be allowed to wear a warmup shit with the words “Black Lives Matter” on it the same way my friends should’ve been allowed to wear a “Bring Back Edelstein” shirt. One is about {insert infinity symbol} percent more important, granted, but the gist is the same. First Amendment, all day long.