Your comments: Mother of East Windsor teen suspended for Confederate flag shirt threatens to sue school

1114confederateflag.jpgTorri Albrecht, 14, an eighth grade student at East Windsor's Kreps Middle School, was suspended on Monday, Nov. 7, 2011, for wearing a Confederate flag sweatshirt to school, according to her mother, Jane West.

The mother of a Kreps Middle School student suspended in a flap over her Confederate flag sweatshirt says she wants the school to formally apologize to her daughter, rescind her suspension and grant the teen permission to attend school outside the district. Jane West, the teen's mother, said she will sue if she doesn't get those things. She's also seeking police protection for her daughter, eighth-grader Torri Albrecht, claiming she was threatened online by people who accused her of being a racist. Albrecht received a one-day suspension after refusing to remove the sweatshirt, but school officials have said she was not suspended because of what she was wearing. users are discussing the mother's threat to sue the school. user chipgiii writes:

This stuff makes me crazy. I get the first amendment and all that, but this is ridiculous. Dress codes are a fact of life in many walks of life. Maybe schools should just make it against the dress code to wear clothing with flags, slogans etc on it. Every time a kid wheres a flag it creates a lawsuit!

Parents send your kids to school to learn the subjects of primary education; don't send them wearing billboards making a statement. They can learn the finer parts of civics in secondary education where us taxpayers are paying a lot less for the results of these lawsuits. user ireaddaily writes:

Do any of you get the fact that the mother staged this whole thing looking for a payoff? From what I read on other sites, this kid defies authority on a regular basis. Schools have the right to ban anything that may cause problems in school. If kids were calling her a racist it probably has something to do with the shirt she was wearing. It's a valid assumption. She brought it on herself. She was calling her mother from gym class. Isn't that a violation of school rules? As far as the I love boobies bracelet, I don't think they should be allowed in school either. They are looking for trouble, and now that they've found it they are suing. What a surprise.

For those of you that feel her rights are violated, think again. Schools have the right to make rules that benefit the majority of the students. Suppose she had been assaulted in school for wearing the shirt. Her mother would have filed a lawsuit claiming that the school didn't protect her daughter. Win-win for her.

The time has come for uniforms. That is the only way for this nonsense to stop. The problem is that someone will file a sit claiming that their right to express themselves is being violated.

Parents need to start being parents and stop backing their children when they misbehave. She was suspended for being insubordinate, not for the shirt. The mother is upset about her kid being called a racist? Maybe she shouldn't have taken the story to the press in the first place. Cha ching!

How do you think school officials should resolve the situation with the family? Respond to these and other comments by jumping directly to the comments section of the article.