Lads,

I have been approached because I wear a kilt, by the parent of a child that has been persecuted.

It seems that a local school district has a dress code that prohibits girls from wearing skirts that reveal higher that where the arm falls naturally to the side, so mid thigh. Boys, on the other hand are permitted to wear shorts, but after a certain point in the year. The school officials have not been enforcing the girls half of the dress code, but the boys were still not able to wear shorts. The boys, as a protest, wore kilts to school. Hey, I say whatever gets them into a kilt is a good thing. But they were, in fact, sent home for inappropriate dress.

I have issue with this on several levels. First, I hear again and again how America is the land of the free, but it seems only if you conform. Be an individual, but only with tattoo’s and miscellaneous piercings not with traditional dress. Be an individual and think outside the box, but stay close to the boxes perimeter.

Second, our schools are supposed to be places of learning, exploring and discovering, but yet free thinking, traditional minded people are oppressed and made to feel different.

Third, a government entity is suppressing the dress of an ethnic part of the United States that helped forge this country. Thanks for your help; put your pants on. A school in which a young man can wear pants sagging to expose underwear, but no kilt?

This is why I wear a kilt, because I can and I believe enlightenment can only be achieved by confronting people with new ideas.

I will be addressing this school board…. Kilted. Any other points you feel I should address, please help me out, I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed.

Thanks and Slainte,

Tobie