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Freedom of wardrobe >> A teenage punk threatens his school with legal action in an ongoing fight over his appearance by JACQUIE CHARLTON
So Luc Lesage, a punk at the Polyvalente St-Henri, didn't stand a chance. School administrators have temporarily suspended him, forced him to see a psychiatrist, threatened him with failing grades and finally seized a petition he and 56 other students had signed calling for the right of all students to wear what they wanted at Polyvalente St-Henri. All because Lesage, a 16 year old from Pointe St-Charles has chosen to wear combat boots, an army shirt and a mohawk to school. It all began in late January. One day he was told by the school director that he could no longer come to school with his mohawk, a style he'd been wearing with no problems since October. He was told it was unattractive, that he was the only person in the school with a mohawk, that 20 kids would want one if he was allowed to wear it and that it identified him with a gang. Lesage was suspended for four days. Until then, he had been a student who hadn't had any problems at school, except for some minor difficulties in math. Lesage saw a lawyer who arranged a meeting in February with Lesage, representatives of the school, and a committee of the Commission des écoles catholiques de Montréal. Lesage was told a decision would come within two weeks, and in the meantime decided to wear his mohawk combed neatly flat as a gesture of goodwill. He has yet to hear from the committee. But things got worse from there on in. Last month he showed up at school wearing an army shirt and was ordered to remove it. And last week he arrived wearing shorts that revealed his combat boots, and was told he wasn't allowed to wear those either. That day, during his lunch hour, he began circulating a petition demanding that students have the right to wear "army pants, and hair styled to our own tastes and in the colour of our choice." Lesage brought the 56-name petition to Polyvalente director Camille Gouin, who read it and then refused to give it back. Only after Lesage wrote a letter threatening legal action did Gouin give back the petition--with a letter of his own advising Lesage on the "democratic way to convey students' points of view:" through the student council, a body Lesage dismisses as being run by school administrators. Yves Manseau of the Citoyens(nes) opposé(es) à la brutalité policière, whose son is a schoolmate of Lesage's, helped Lesage draft the letter. Manseau scoffs at the director's pretensions at democratic wisdom: "After carrying out such an anti-democratic gesture as to take a petition away from a student exercising his democratic rights, he then gives him a lesson in democracy! If that's education, it's no wonder there's such a high dropout rate in Montreal." Gouin did not return the Mirror's calls by press time. Lesage's troubles aren't over. He's been ordered to see a psychiatrist at the school on a regular basis, and his mother received a call from Gouin who accused him of belonging to a gang, peddling drugs and being involved with robbery. "She didn't believe him," Lesage says. Meanwhile, Lesage is continuing to circulate his petition among the students at the Polyvalente St-Henri. He now has 125 signatures. Why doesn't he just give up and don a Tommy shirt himself? "The world is full of different people," he replies. "We've got to be ready to accept that. When I was little my mother told me I couldn't change people and that I had to learn to accept them whatever colour they were."
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The teacher's pets in Luc Lesage's school all wear Tommy Hilfiger. When the urban fabric is fraying, as it is in and around the Polyvalente St-Henri, something about Tommy says "safe."