A seventh-grader was forced to cover up his Star Wars t-shirt at school because it showed a weapon

(Image credit: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

published 14 December 2015

A Texas seventh-grader named Colton Southern was required to cover up his Star Wars t-shirt at school because administrators said it ran afoul of school policy banning "symbols oriented toward violence." The shirt shows a stormtrooper holding a weapon alongside a large logo advertising the latest film in the science fiction series.

Colton's father, Joe Southern, said his son has worn the shirt to school several times before without incident. "You're talking about a Star Wars t-shirt, a week before the biggest movie of the year comes out. It has nothing to do with guns or making a stand. It's just a Star Wars shirt," he commented, adding, "He's a Boy Scout, active in church, volunteers at Brazos Bend State Park. There's not a violent bone in his body. He's just an excited kid for the movie."

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.