You know they were hoping they’d get sent home :P

There was clearly a better reaction to be given to the first incident, one that didn’t acknowledge the gimmick the students were attempting to exploit. Probably meeting them in the hall and employing a little clever derision would have done the trick: three sentences, a mocking look, implying “you’re really dressed like that?” Instead, the principal made a not-thing a thing. If there could be principles to practical judgment, “inaction is a good default” would be up there.

Seems a certain kind of thinking might be at fault here, one in which inaccurate, law- and media-driven distinctions foul up one’s reasoning. Kids dressed alike hearken a gang or gang-like activity; therefore, discipline must be clear and public, both to send a message and to protect one from liability. Whatever capacity one might have to understand these particular people as particular people is pushed aside. Instead, one reasons from the premises that they are the signs or symbols of easily broadcasted concepts. I wonder, could the principal have even imagined what silly desire would have motivated that display?