Just over a month ago, a student was removed from a high school dance for wearing a kilt . The student was Nathan Warmack and he is a student at Jackson High School (Missouri). He was trying to show pride for his Scottish heritage, but the principal said it was a distraction.
Nathan hopes to change that – the Kansas City Star/AP is running a story by Betsy Taylor, detailing the youth’s attempt at getting the dress code changed.
He got interested in his family’s Scottish ties after seeing Mel Gibson’s 1995 movie “Braveheart,” about William Wallace’s battle to overthrow English rule in 13th century Scotland. Warmack reads books about Scotland and checks Web sites to learn more about his family’s genealogy.
Then, he bought a kilt off the Internet to wear to his school’s formal “Silver Arrow” dance in November. Warmack said he showed it to a vice principal before the dance, who joked he’d better wear something underneath it, and Warmack assured him he would.
After Nathan and his date posed for pictures, Principal Rick McClard, who had not previously seen the kilt, told the student he had to go change. Warmack refused a few times and said the outfit was recognizing his heritage.
Warmack said McClard told him: “Well, this is my dance, and I’m not going to have students coming into it looking like clowns.”
This is going to be an interesting story to follow.