Student upset after told to change anti-American shirt

WABASH -- A high school student who was threatened by others after she wore a band T-shirt depicting an upside-down American flag is angry that the school's principal ordered her to change her shirt.\nChalice Starling, 17, of Somerset arrived at Southwood High School last week wearing a T-shirt of the band Anti-Flag, a politically vocal band whose members are critical of what they say are the evils of global domination.\nSchool officials asked Starling to change her T-shirt but she refused. She said she wore the shirt to protest actions involving other students who previously came to school dressed in the same shirt.\n"This is not about me or a student who had his shirt ripped off," Starling said. "It is about what is right."\nSchool officials did not ask Starling to change shirts until threats to her safety and other disruptions in the school began, said Charles Tiede, a lawyer for the Wabash County school district.\nThe handbook at the 350-student school, about 50 miles southwest of Fort Wayne, allows officials to discipline students wearing clothing that would cause a distraction to the educational process, Superintendent Damon Peigh said.\nBoth of the other students who came to school wearing the shirt removed it when asked to do so by school officials, Principal Tom Mitchell said. When one student returned to school in the T-shirt, he was attacked by another student, Mitchell said.\nStudents are more sensitive to the image depicted on the shirt in light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he said.\n"People are sensitive to anything having to do with the flag," Mitchell said.\nBut Starling's mother, Felicia Perkins, said school officials could have handled the situation with her daughter differently.\n"I find it upsetting that a school reacts this way, giving in to threats and name calling," she said.