PARACHUTE, Colo. (AP) — A Colorado student who was forbidden from wearing a sash with the flags of Mexico and the United States until her high school graduation did so anyway, partially covering it with another sash, which symbolized her participation in an aid organization.
“Always stand up for what you believe in,” said Naomi Peña Villasano, a graduate of Grand Valley High School postal independent of Glenwood Springs, Colorado, after receiving her diploma Saturday in the western Colorado town of Parachute.
The Peña Villasano case is the latest controversy in the United States What a cultural conclusion Clothing is permitted at the opening ceremony.
Peña Villasano appealed to school officials in court after they said she would be barred from attending graduation ceremonies if she wore a stars and stripes sash on one side and a cactus, eagle and snake symbol on the other wear for the mexican flag.
A federal judge ruled Friday that the Peña Villasano school district could ban the wearing of the sash at graduation. However, with her flag sash partially covered with a gold Key Club International sash, no one tried to stop Peña Villasano from crossing the stage to collect her diploma.
School officials said the policy of not allowing individual sashes at the graduation ceremony is aimed at “protecting the symbolic traditions that mark graduates’ academic achievement and service to the community.” “Any stole, cord or pin worn over the graduate’s gown symbolizes academic distinctions, school-sponsored activities and military service,” the school said in a statement.
The district says it will reconsider its graduation sash guidelines before the class of 2024 graduates next spring.
Similar disputes erupted across the US during the closing season.
A transgender girl skipped graduation from her Mississippi high school this year after she was banned from wearing a dress at the ceremony. In Oklahoma, a Native American graduate filed a lawsuit against a school district this month for removing a feather, a sacred religious object, from her cap ahead of graduation in 2022.