HALIFAX – Five words on a bright yellow T-shirt could keep a Nova Scotia high school student from graduating.
William Swinimer was suspended for a week from Forest Heights Community School in Chester Basin on Monday for wearing a shirt that reads “Life is wasted without Jesus.”
The Grade 12 student, a devout Christian, risks not finishing school if he chooses to wear the shirt again.
This is the seventh time school officials have suspended Swinimer for the same reason.
Swinimer says the school is discriminating against him because of his religious beliefs.
“The reason I’m wearing the T-shirt is because I’m standing up for my religion and for my freedom of speech,” he says. “I have nothing against any other people’s religions.”
“I believe it’s worth sticking up for,” he says. “You know all the people who stood up for rights and freedoms in the past have had to pay a price and I may not be on the same levels as them, but if you want to get something done you have to pay the price.”
He vows to return to school next week wearing the shirt once again, even if that means not graduating.
While Swinimer was suspended for refusing to change his shirt at his principal’s request rather than the message on the garment, the slogan is clearly a part of the problem.
The South Shore Regional School Board says the message could be construed as criticism toward other students and their beliefs.
“Where we have to be careful is where it’s reasonable to interpret an expression as being an invasion or criticism of other people’s beliefs,” says SSRB superintendent Nancy Pynch-Worthylake. “That’s the question at this point.”
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Read a statement from the South Shore Regional School Board below
The boy’s father, John Swinimer, says he’s proud of his son and sees him as showing “fortitude” and “respect.”
“Not only is it William’s toes that they’re stepping on, but they are stepping on every faith that’s out there,” John Swinimer says.
Some students say they are going to support the student this Friday by wearing white T-shirts with the same message written on them.
“We figure if we’re all wearing the shirt they can’t suspend us all,” says Grade 11 student Caleb Rand. “Then maybe everything will stop.”
Rand says he has seen schoolmates walking around with marijuana leaf T-shirts without being disciplined, so he questions why Swinimer was kicked out of school.
“The students, they’re all on my side,” Swinimer says. “There’s like maybe three in the entire school that are against me on the T-shirt thing.”
Some members of the student body at Forest Heights Community School disagree. When Global News posted a poll online Tuesday, some pupils shared their views on the situation on Facebook.
Student Lucas Reeves wrote there is more to the story than what Swinimer is sharing.
“Please take your head out of the sand and realize that people are being affected by this and it needs to stop,” he writes.
He claims Swinimer wore the shirt for about two weeks straight and repeatedly “verbally attacked other students about their religions.”
Another student, Lianne Lenihan, says wearing a T-shirt with a religious slogan is not an issue, but this situation is much different.
“NO ONE has had a problem with William wearing any of his other t-shirts that support Christianity,” she says in a Facebook post. “They have all been welcomed, and I’ve heard compliments on them.”
“It is just this one shirt that people have found offensive,” Lenihan says, “because of the other situations that have led up to this incidence.”
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Still, Swinimer’s pastor at the Jesus the Good Shepherd Church says the teen is the one being bullied.
“He has the freedom to express his faith and to believe in this book,” Pastor Varrick Day says.
Day says there has been an outpouring of support for Swinimer following his suspension and he says he is offering to print off replicas of the shirt for those that want to show their solidarity.
The school board says it is “seeking an expert opinion” on the matter, to determine if a message such as this “could be reasonably interpreted to be disrespectful of others’ beliefs or a violation of others’ rights.”
SSRB is also looking into mediation to resolve the problem, but there was no word as to whether Swinimer will face expulsion if he dons the shirt when he returns to school next week.
*With files from Natasha Pace
Statement From Superintendent of Schools (SSRB)
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