Student Sent Home For Wearing #BlackLivesMatter Shirt With List of People Killed by Police

Photos by Fatimah Bouderdaben

HOUSTON -- Harmony School for Advancement senior Fatimah Bouderdaben wanted to participate with the city-wide tribute to the recently murdered Harris County Sheriff's Deputy Darren Goforth by wearing a blue shirt to school last Friday, but she also wanted to remind people that the issue of police brutality was still under debate. So she inscribed her blue shirt with “Black Lives Matter” as well as the names and ages of victims like Eric Garner and Michael Brown. Bouderbaden says she was sent home from school for refusing to change out of her shirt or turn it inside out.

“Many of my friends were upset about the implications of wearing blue so I made t shirts with the words ‘Black Lives Matter’ on the front and the names and ages of 26 victims of police brutality on the back,” says Bouderdaben. “We were told by the administration to either cover it up / take it off or be pulled from class and sent home. My friends chose to change but I refused to because I was not breaking dress code.”

Bouderdaben, 17, said she and three other students were addressed in their first period class by Dean of Students Meredith Millspaugh about how their shirts were disrupting the school environment. According to Bouderdaben the phrase “all lives matter” was also used, a phrase frequently seen by supporters of the BLM movement as an attempt to shut down conversations about the disproportionate number of blacks that have fatal encounters with the police. A recent investigation by The Guardian showed that blacks make up 29 percent of people killed by police despite being only 13 percent of the general population. Of those killed 32 percent were unarmed.

Bouderdaben says that during her next period class, she was taken into the hall by Millspaugh, who told her she had to change or be sent home. Bouderdaben says that when she refused, Millspaugh began yelling at her until the teenager started to cry.

Read more: http://www.houstonpress.com/news/student-sent-home-for-wearing-blacklivesmatter-shirt-with-list-of-people-killed-by-police-7747458