School Forces 8-Year-Old With ‘Black Girls Rock’ Shirt to Change
Elementary school officials have apologized to an 8-year-old girl and her mother after forcing the student to change out of a T-shirt that read “Black Girls Rock.”
Makiyah-Jae, an elementary student in Biloxi, Miss., was once insecure about her African-American features. Her mother, Sharika Jolly, told WLOX that the young girl wanted to straighten her hair and dye it blond, so Jolly bought a T-shirt from the empowerment organization Black Girls Rock to help her daughter celebrate her beauty. “I’m like, ‘No, baby. That’s not you. This is who you are. You don’t have to be like anyone else but yourself,’” Jolly said. “She should be comfortable in her own skin.“
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While Jolly says her daughter has worn the shirt to Popps Ferry Elementary School before, last week, when Makiyah-Jae went to class, she was sent home in a different outfit. Makiyah-Jae told her mom she was forced to take the shirt off by the school principal. “When I asked him what was the reason for him taking the shirt off of her, he said, ‘You’re right. It’s not in the policy. Nowhere in the policy does it state that the shirt is out of dress code,’” Jolly told WLOX. “He said they made a judgment call, then I proceeded to ask, ‘Well, who are the judges judging my 8-year-old?’ And he said, ‘Well, I’m the principal so I made the call.’”
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Jolly took the issue up with Biloxi Public School District officials, who eventually apologized and admitted that the school “overreached.” Superintendent Arthur McMillan told WLOX that the principal reconsidered his decision and realized it was unnecessary to make Makiyah-Jae change. “We were trying to avoid a conflict. In today’s world we think about all the politically correct things [and] we don’t want to offend anybody; probably overreached in this situation,” McMillan said. “We make many decisions every day. Sometimes with decisions we make even as parents, we go back and look and think ‘I wish I’d made that decision different.’ I think that’s the situation here. If [the principal] could make that decision again, he’d probably say, ‘Hey, you know that’s not a big deal,’ but you’re always guarding against ‘how do we not offend anybody?’”
Makiyah-Jae is now free to wear her “Black Girls Rock” T-shirt to school whenever she wants, and her mom says she’s accepted the school’s apology. Still, Jolly says she has her concerns, asking WLOX, “How many other kids have been discriminated against at that school and their parents have not spoken up?”
Photo: WLOX
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