Raw Story – by Arturo GarciaA high school graduate in Alabama is being denied her diploma after being fined $1,000 for wearing a feather reflecting her Native American heritage.
“I don’t think it’s fair at all,” 17-year-old Chelsey Ramer told WPMI-TV. “I feel like its discrimination.”
Ramer, a member of the Poarch Creek Band of Indians, wore the feather while taking part in the graduation ceremony at Escambia Academy High School in defiance of school policy forbidding “extraneous items” from being worn without school permission.
The school sent a contract for graduating seniors to sign before the May 23 event, but Ramer told the station she never signed it. Escambia is now withholding her diploma until she pays the fine.
“About two months ago, me and the other Indian seniors from the graduating class asked our headmaster if we could wear the feathers on our caps,” Ramer told Indian Country Today Media Network. “She told us ‘no’ and that if we did, she would pull us off the field.”
However, Ramer attended and walked in the ceremony without incident. Indian Country Today reported that the headmaster who denied Ramer’s request, Betty Warren, has been replaced by David Walker, who coaches Escambia’s girl’s basketball team.
“He said if it was up to him, he would give me my diploma,” Ramer said to Indian Country Today. “But he had to go through the board to get it approved.”
Watch WPMI’s report on Ramer’s fine, aired Friday, below.
I don’t know what to say about this. I feel bad for the poor girl suffering for expressing her heritage, but at the same time, these graduation ceremonies have everyone dressed in matching caps and gowns to impart some kind of solemnity to the affair. This is kind of like one of the Rockettes kicking with a different colored boot than the rest of the line.
The feather she was told not to wear was an act of protest, and sometimes that results in official sanctions.
Sorry jolly roger i disagree in part ,sign a contract to get your diploma that u earned, something wrong with that picture
Yea I agree. Since when do you need to sign a contract to get a diploma? Are they working for the school on a contract basis or something? Is this their new “School-to-work” idea? Do our children have to sign a contract in order to be educated?
When will these assholes in the education industry ever learn? As a former school teacher, I continue to try to get it throught their thick heads, EDUCATION IS NOT A BUSINESS!!!!!! NOT A BUSINESS!!!!! It’s a LEARNING PLACE!!! STOP MAKING EVERYTHING A BUSINESS!!! They are not there to be trained, they are there to LEARN!!!
I agree Car ,signing a contract to receive your diploma? She had every right to wear the feather, just like every Christian had every right to wear a necklace with a cross on it, or a Hindu has wearing the red dot on their forehead.
Being a halfbreed myself, I find this quite disturbing. However, I’m not really welcomed on either side of my heritage. The European side thinks I’m tainted with savage blood and the Native side thinks I’m a white man. I don’t care though, it’s their loss. Ever try to kill a weed? Cut it down and it keeps coming back.
From my understanding, the dress code would also preclude Christians from wearing big crosses over their gowns, Jews from displaying stars of David or LGBT types from rainbow sashes. If she wouldn’t adhere to the sartorial requirements, she likely should have been excluded from the ceremony. To charge her for her diploma is ridiculous and a greater abuse by the school than her feathery protest was to the school. Guess she got an education, huh?
These schools are supported by federal tax dollars. That means every American national of every pigment of skin must be afforded their inalienable rights absolute.
F#@k this school and its administration.
Come to a graduation in Chiloquin, we have caps, gowns, feathers, beads, and even war drums. The government telling any one of us how to look is infringement by definition.
Agreed.
This politically correct bullshit is absolutely insane.
In this climate of stupidity any action can be construed as offensive. And for the ‘school’ to spit in this girl’s face by charging her money for something she earned is downright
disturbing.
Homeschool. F*@k the indoctrination centers.
K-12 is online for FREE.
For example: http://www.k12.com/
Then have you own graduation ceremony and wear anything you damn well please.
-flek
if she had been muslim and wanted to wear the koran or something affiliated with islam, that would have been ok though, right??
these communist bastards who’ve infiltrated our schools need to be systematically purged from the system! they serve no purpose but to cause dissention and corrupt our youth!
What’s an indoctrination certificate worth these days anyway? With McDougals requiring a college degree to flip burgers, not much, apparently.
I love to see her at least file a discrimination suit, even if it went nowhere. Give those commie bast@rds something to think about.
I’m fed up to the back teeth of people obsessing about their ancestry, “heritage”, “culture”, “identity”, and so on. Concentrate on being decent people and good citizens. (If I ever meet the girl I’ll bore her rigid with a two hour lecture on the topic.)
That said, get a sense of proportion, school.
This is a teenage girl who wants to wear a feather.
I’m pretty sure that American society will not collapse from that.
I’m very sure that plague and famine will not sweep across the entire world as a result of her feather.
And the worst evil – bad grammar – already has done, without her feather.