A secondary school has been accused of demanding a student’s “submission” to a type of identity after he was accused of breaking uniform rules and sanctioned when he turned up for the new term with one of his ears pierced.
In a complaint under the Equal Status Act 2000, the 16-year-old’s solicitor said there was “a contention that a boy shouldn’t wear earrings” on the part of the school’s principal, who it is claimed told the student his options were to take out the stud and let the piercing close up or to have his second ear pierced.
The solicitor told the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) this amounted to “imposing upon this child a submission to a particular type of identity”. He said the general practice in the area was that “two earrings are generally worn by girls”, an earring in the left ear was “indicative of heterosexuality” and an earring in the right pointed to “gay identity”.
The claim is denied by the school, whose lawyer, in addressing the proposition that the placement of a single ear piercing suggested homosexuality, said: “I await with interest as to when the cultural expert will give evidence on the subculture.”
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She pointed to Colin Farrell, Will Smith and David Beckham as examples of “well-known men identifying as heterosexual” who were pictured in the media wearing two ear studs.
Giving evidence, the student’s mother said her son’s piercing “hadn’t healed” at the start of the term and bled when the stud was removed. She said she outlined to the assistant principal that by her reading, the school rules on ear piercing were “clearly stating a limit of studs in each ear”.
The woman said her son returned to school with the piercing still in place and he later phoned her to say the assistant principal had told him to go home “because of the stud”. She said she phoned the principal to ask why her son was being excluded on that day and was told he had excluded himself.
When she arrived to the school and asked the principal why she was being “misled”, the principal “went off into a rant and said he was asking [the student] to ring me to arrange a meeting”, the boy’s mother said.
Her account of the exchange that followed was that she repeatedly challenged the principal on how he had spoken to her son and that the principal had responded: “I will speak to him whatever way I like”.
“The only way I could get [the principal] to stop shouting was to say I would need to have my solicitor present to have an abusive meeting like this,” she added.
A solicitor’s letter followed, the tribunal was told.
The witness said that from September 6th onwards her son was subject to sanctions, including being placed sitting outside the principal’s office, denied leave to go down to the town on his lunch break, and being assigned to evening detention which would have meant missing his bus home.
She told the tribunal this went on for six to seven weeks until early in October, when the assistant principal had stated there would be “no further sanctions” until the case was heard at the WRC.
Rosemary Mallon BL, appearing for the school instructed by Mason Hayes and Curran, said three options were outlined to the student – a stud in the other ear, wearing a plaster over the stud or taking it out.
“He was treated no differently to anyone else ... Whether the rule is a good rule or a bad rule doesn’t matter, it is a rule that applied equally to men and women in the school.”
Solicitor Gerard Cullen, representing the boy, submitted that was that there was a “male chauvinist attitude that belongs to a certain sort of religious ethos” at play, which he submitted was in conflict with the “expression of individuality, a certain sort of sympathy for certain persons” involved with wearing such an earring.
Ms Mallon replied that any reference to religion in the case was “spurious”.
Adjudicator Brian Dalton adjourned the hearing to a later date.
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