'Straight Pride' controversy takes calmer tone at St. Charles North
The saga of controversial shirts at St. Charles North High School may not be over, but students wishing to express “Straight Pride” sentiments appeared to have employed a more subtle tactic Friday.
“I would best describe today as just a normal day at school,” District Spokesman Jim Blaney said.
Shirts bearing a Biblical verse advocating death for homosexuals first surfaced Monday, the start of Ally Week at school, an event aimed at anti-bullying efforts that began with recognition of recent gay student suicides across the country. The shirts outraged some students, leading school staff to ask students to remove a more tame version of the shirts with just “Straight Pride” worn on Tuesday. That prompted rumors of a larger group of students planning to wear “Straight Pride” shirts, or some version of that message, on Friday.
Blaney said that plan never materialized. School staff only noted one student with a “Straight Pride” shirt Friday.
“The student wore the shirt, and it did not cause any disruptions,” Blaney said. “The student was also allowed to continue wearing the shirt. The guidance we had given was that, if you were wearing a shirt with a pro or positive message for a cause, it would not be an issue.”
Support for “Straight Pride” may have manifested in the most subtle shirts worn during the week. Students suggested on a Facebook page that classmates who wore black clothes to school Friday did so in protest of staff asking students to remove their shirts Tuesday as well as in protest of Ally Week in general.
Senior Joe Adamczyk, vice president of the school's Gay-Straight Alliance club, said he saw one “Straight Pride” shirt Friday and more students than usual wearing black. In hindsight, Adamczyk said he regrets the animosity Ally Week created but not the lessons it taught everyone.
“It's good that Ally Week brought forward these issues,” said Adamczyk, who said he doesn't believe anyone wants divisiveness to linger. “It taught people we have to learn to coexist. Everything that happened proves that we do still need Ally Week. It proved that people do still have hate.”
Nearly 200 students and alumni have committed, via a Facebook page, to attend the December school board meeting and voice their concerns over the shirts and how staff handled the controversy.
“Our goal there is to find a way to deal with these problems more efficiently so it doesn't take a whole day or a whole week to decide what should be done during this sort of thing,” Adamczyk said.
The district declined a request for an interview with Principal Kim Zupec.