Free State T-shirts draw ire of faculty, students

Shirts refer to drug abuse, critics say

To three junior student council members at Free State High School and faculty adviser Jane Rock, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

In fact, 50 big, yellow smiley faces with white “I Go To Free State High!” imprints on as many green T-shirts seemed the best option for their class theme for this week’s homecoming.

“For us, it was just things that make us happy,” student council vice president Erin Robinson said.

But the T-shirt generated a stir among some faculty and students who thought the smiley face and word placement added a little more to the theme. Critics said the T-shirt was an allusion to drug and alcohol abuse.

On the front of the T-shirt is the sentence “I Go To Free State High,” which is meant to be somewhat humorous because it’s so simple, said Spencer Higginson, vice president of the junior class.

The problem is the connection the smiley face has to a 1993 movie “Dazed and Confused” in which a similar smiley face with similar half-closed eyelids appears on the movie poster. And the word “High” is placed on a line of its own.

The movie is about the last day of school in a Texas high school, circa 1976, and most of the students spend their time trying to get drunk or stoned.

The student council members and Rock said there was no intended connection to the movie or drugs.

The problem, they said, was that they had limited design options for the T-shirt, including a puppy dog, a spider-monkey and a childish-looking Pokemon character.

Rock said she agreed those options merited rejection. But in light of the reaction to the smiley face, she said she has reconsidered.

The reaction from Free State students has been mixed.

Mitchell Haverty, junior class president, said one student called the T-shirt a disgrace to the school.

But other students were saying it was great to have such a “cool” shirt, Robinson said.

One faculty member, according to the council members, would not allow the students to wear the T-shirt.

“It makes me really sad that there are faculty that look at the negative,” Rock said.