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Breast cancer awareness t-shirts banned at Kansas school
Filed under: Teens, In The News, Day Care & Education
October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and the shirt pictured here was designed to raise awareness with a sense of humor. Kelly Rooney, who died from breast cancer in 2006, came up with the idea and her family now sells the shirts online with 50% going to the Pennsylvania-based Kelly Rooney Foundation. I think the shirts are really quite clever and would have no problem wearing it in public. Would I want my teenage daughter wearing it? Probably not.Haley Wenthe and Jessica Sheahon, seniors at Salina Central High School in Salina, Kansas, thought the shirts were clever as well and decided to have some printed up to sell along with other items as part of a community project through their school. Hoping to raise $10,000 to benefit the Tammy Walker Cancer Center and Hospice of Salina, the girls ordered 900 shirts in two different designs and planned to sell them at their high school's football game.
Initially, administrators at the school supported their efforts. The vice principal even offered to shave his head if the girls met their goal. But hours before the game, assistant principal Linn Exline pulled the plug, deeming the shirts inappropriate. Even when the girls agreed to inform buyers that the shirts couldn't be worn on campus, they were denied the opportunity to sell them.
Wenthe says she understands the decision, but thinks administrators are missing the point. "We're not trying to be dirty about it, but to have some humor, instead of a T-shirt saying how many people died from breast cancer last year," Wenthe said. "We thought if you want to educate students, you have to do it in a way that reaches them."
Of course, banning the shirts made them quite popular with the students and after the local newspaper editor agreed to take orders online, the girls found themselves with another problem. The original creator of the shirt, the Kelly Rooney Foundation, had an issue with the girls selling their copyrighted design and has asked them to stop. The girls have agreed and offered to give any money raised over and above their goal to the Rooney foundation.
So, it all ends well and it sounds like the girls are well on their way to reaching their goal. But the question remains - should high school girls be wearing a shirt that makes reference to breast fondling?
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
10-23-2007 @ 2:47PM
Jessica said...I have a "Save the Ta-Ta's" bumper sticker!
Whatever works to raise money for a cause. I can't say I blame the school. If you allowed that shirt, you would have to allow a lot of others that are banned. What about the old FBI shirt (female body inspector)
Reply
10-23-2007 @ 3:00PM
LS said...I have a couple of comments here.
First, I commend the girls on their fund raising efforts, even if they did go about it the wrong way. Stealing another's idea is not ok, no matter how "cute" it is. They should have obtained permission from the Rooney Foundation, or asked them to provide the t's or whatever. It's nice that the Rooney's are allowing the girls to keep some of the profits.
Second, the school should have been more on the ball on this one. To approve the program, only to pull the plug at the last minute is bad form. They should have asked - at the very beginning - to approve the design of the shirts. They could have avoided problems from the very beginning.
Those things said, I don't think I'd be letting my teenage daughter (if I had one) wear a shirt like this one, with the sexual references. There are plenty of G-rated ways to express your support for a cause.
Reply
10-23-2007 @ 3:06PM
SKL said...No. But I have to admit that I did something a bit more subtle in high school. When we moved to a new town, our realtor gave us t-shirts that read "choice properties handled by ___." My mom pointed out the potential double meaning. I wore it to school because it was about the only t-shirt I had, and I was so thrilled that I now attended a school whose dress code allowed t-shirts. Fortunately or unfortunately, few people got the joke.
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10-23-2007 @ 6:01PM
Liz said...Somehow, I think that high schoolers have figured out the girls have boobs. This is a way to bring attention about an important issue to young people...if the shirts are a distraction in class, then fine. But I would support wearing them outside of class.
Bad form on stealing the design though...but a valuable lesson learned for the girls, and probably others at the school.
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10-23-2007 @ 10:13PM
Eric said...Copyright infringement... not a big deal to teenagers. Isn't that the majority of illegal music downloads?
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10-24-2007 @ 4:32AM
Anji said...It makes me sick only because it's seemingly impossible for us to treat women's bodies as important for anything other than male pleasures.
"Save second base" - like breasts are nothing more than a goal for men to attain? I'd like to think my breasts are worth a whole lot more than that.
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