School officials at Dinwiddie High School in small-town Virginia forced a student to remove a Duck Dynasty t-shirt he had worn to school because they deemed it threatening, reports local NBC affiliate WWBT.
The shirt shows Uncle Si, an old, bearded guy from the hugely popular A&E television show Duck Dynasty, with his fist clenched. The shirt reads, in big block letters: “I will hurt you physically and metaphysically.”
The boy’s mother, Edna-Jo Spain — sporting a sweet, yellow Duck Dynasty shirt for her interview — was incensed about the decision.
“For this to be considered as a threat to the school, I just couldn’t understand it,” she told WWBT. “Anybody that ever watches Duck Dynasty knows that Si Robertson is famous for his little funny slogans and his jargons.”
Other little funny slogans which Uncle Si has uttered include “Your beard is so hairy, even Dora can’t explore it” and “A redneck walkin’ into Bass Pro Shops gets more excited than a 12 year old girl going to a Justin Beaver concert,” according a website dedicated to Duck Dynasty quotes.
Spain explained that school officials told her son, Hunter, that he could either turn the shirt inside-out or go home for the rest of the day.
Hunter chose instead to ditch the shirt.
“I’m not gonna look stupid in front of all these young ladies in school, so I decided to get a different t-shirt.”
Hunter also noted that he didn’t mean to offend anyone.
David Clark, the superintendent of Dinwiddie County Public Schools superintendent, told WWBT in an email that he was worried that people who are unfamiliar with the show might be frightened.
“If you are a Duck Dynasty fan you understand the meaning of the shirt,” Clark wrote. “But if you haven’t watched Duck Dynasty you may question if the shirt implies violence.”
“As a school division, we would like to keep our slogans on student shirts as non-violent as possible,” he added in a phone call with a reporter.
Spain mentioned that her family planned to go on a Duck Dynasty cruise this summer. Also, there is such a thing as a Duck Dynasty cruise.
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