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Published on 10/27/1999 All articles from this issue

Los Altos students and administrators wage battle over censorship

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By Serena Chang

Special to the Town Crier

What began as a disagreement over student-designed T-shirts at Los Altos High School has escalated into a battle about censorship and freedom of expression between the school's students and administrators.

The conflict began when about 65 senior girls arrived on the first day of school wearing bright red T-shirts depicting a clawing cat with the slogan, "You may not like us, but your boyfriends sure do."

Principal Pattie Montalbano said she was concerned over the appropriateness of the shirt.

"That particular T-shirt, with the cat, raised a red flag for me," she said.

Montalbano said that the students had not sought permission from the administration before printing the shirts.

Currently, there is no approval process for students to follow before printing school shirts.

The senior boys had been trying to reach a compromise with the administration over their class shirts. Montalbano said the boys' original idea, two sunny side-up eggs above the Spanish words, "Huevos Grandes" ("big eggs"), was rejected due to sexual connotations. They next proposed a shirt with the letters LAPD superimposed over the outline of a sheriff's star.

Montalbano said, "They never said what it meant. I said if it was just a badge with LAPD, I can go with that, but I don't believe that it doesn't mean something. So, they left. The first time we heard (that the letters stood for 'Los Altos) Pimp Daddies' was in The Talon (Los Altos High's school paper)," Montalbano said.

Alan Yu, Associated Student Body president, disagreed that the shirts are offensive.

"I'm pretty sure half the guys don't even know the underlying meaning of pimp. They just know it as meaning cool," he said.

The topic lay dormant for a while until the school's homecoming parade two weeks ago, when the cross-country and field hockey teams marched down Main Street wearing their respective team T-shirts.

The blue cross-country shirts, worn by most of the team's members, read "Not Sponsored" on the front with the motto, "Trample the dead, Hurdle the weak" on the back. The team as a whole designed them.

The administration told the students the shirts were "unsportsmanlike."

The yellow field hockey shirts, designed by seniors Ana Denmark and Cindy Shur, reads "Blood makes the grass grow" on the sleeves under a silhouette of a field hockey player. The back of the shirt shows a list of the "Top 10 reasons to date a field hockey player," the majority of which are sexual in nature.

The issue came to a head the Wednesday after the homecoming parade, when the administration received word of plans to wear all offensive T-shirts the next day.

At a staff meeting that Thursday morning, the administration notified all first-period teachers to tell their students to turn the shirts inside-out, change clothes, or go to the office for a possible suspension.

About 25 students crowded inside and around the doorway of Montalbano's office during first period.

The school held an open forum the following day with students, administrators and the Los Altos Police Department to exchange viewpoints on the topic.

The administration is working on creating a task force that will create guidelines for student behavior at the school. The task force will include administration, staff, parents, students, and other community members.

- Chang is a student at Los Altos High School.