Student criticizes dress code after being told she can't wear "Make America Great Again" hat to school
A Northern California high school student criticized her school district's dress code after she was told she couldn't wear a hat featuring a well-known Trump campaign slogan to school, CBS affiliate KGPE-TV reports. Her school district said its dress code prohibits most hats, not just ones that say "Make America Great Again."
Maddie Mueller, a senior at Clovis North High School in Fresno, wanted to wear her "Make America Great Again" hat on Wednesday. She said she was told that she couldn't wear it.
Mueller criticized the decision. "How does being a patriot and trying to show pride in your country, how is that inappropriate?" she told KGPE-TV.
A spokeswoman for the Clovis Unified School District defended its dress code. "Bottom line for us, our dress code is really about allowing our kids to come to school, to feel safe at school, to feel supported at school and to be free of distractions so they can focus on learning," Kelly Avants told KGPE-TV.
Avants told Yahoo Lifestyle that only hats featuring the school's logo or solid school colors are allowed. Mueller told KGPE-TV she asked if she could wear a Trump hat with the school's colors on it and was told that she couldn't.
Mueller also opposed that decision. "To my knowledge, Trump is not a logo," she told the station. "It's a last name. It's just our president. You can't really claim that our president is a logo, a sports team. It's not affiliating with any gang."
The student said she has worn to school T-shirts featuring the phrase "Build the wall." The phrase refers to President Trump's campaign promise to construct a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border that was at the center of the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history and a national emergency declaration that's being contested in the courts.
"I'm not really caring if I'm offending anybody," Mueller said. "I'm just showing support for the president and what I believe."
