At James Bowie High School in Austin, Texas, seniors with a good attendance record are eligible for reserved parking spots that they get to design themselves. But after being asked to alter their custom designs, students say school officials discriminated against their religious and racial expressions.
KXAN reports that one student from India, who chose not be named, said school staff originally approved her Taj Mahal design. After it was painted, however, the school’s principal told her to make it look less like a mosque.
AISD spokesperson Cristina Nguyen told KXAN that the spots are a “privilege” but that the designs “cannot include religious symbolism.” According to the news station, other students’ parking spots included Bible verses.
Multiple students at Austin’s Bowie High say they were told to change the paintings on their senior high parking spot because administrators said they were too religious. Meantime there are multiple with bible versus that didn’t get rejected. pic.twitter.com/z5E81XHjNJ
— Tom Miller (@TomMillerNews) September 11, 2018
One senior, Brooke Wilkerson, wrote “Romans 12:21” on her spot and noted the administration’s hypocrisy.
“As a Christian student I can put my Bible verse, but as someone who believes in Allah and worships Islam, the religion, they should be able to put whatever they want on their parking spot,” Wilkerson told KXAN.
Another student, Kennedy Hartman, wanted to paint a portrait of herself wearing a shirt that said “Black Girl Magic.” But she said the administration didn’t approve her design until the phrase was removed.
“Saying ‘Black girl magic’ is like feeling empowering about yourself and feeling like you can accomplish anything as a Black girl,” Hartman told KXAN. “A predominantly white school is telling me, whose staff is predominantly white, is telling me I can’t put ‘Black girl magic’ on there.”
School officials said they had no record of Hartman’s request to write “Black Girl Magic” on her spot, but KXAN reports that emails showed the design was rejected. According to the news station, the school did approve a pro-police “blue lives matter” flag.
H/T KXAN
