High School Students Put on Protest at Drop of a Hat : Education: Westside school bans headgear, but pupils fight back. The aim is to cut down on displays of gang colors.

Chanting “Hats, hats, hats,” a group of about 75 University High School students gathered outside the school Thursday to protest a new edict banning headgear from the campus as “distracting” and symbolic of gangs.

“I feel it’s kind of bogus to take away our rights to wear what we want to wear,” said student M. Zachary Sherman.

The hat ban was the first controversial decision of the school’s newly formed “Shared Decision-Making Council” made up of the principal, teachers, parents and community members, a power sharing arrangement that was a key part of the teachers’ strike settlement last year.

The head wear edict went into effect on Thursday when students getting off the buses were asked to take off their hats or have them confiscated.

Although they were forewarned and granted one last “Hat Day” Wednesday, many of the students balked at the new rule, contending that it violates their freedom of expression.

An unsuspecting military recruiter in full uniform who walked into the school during the protest was grist for their mill. “Take your hat off. It’s gang-related,” the students yelled.

Junior Patrick Stehy, 16, usually a non-hat wearer, donned a tan plaid hat that belonged to his grandfather for the protest. “You can’t solve the gang problem at the drop of the hat,” Stehy said.

Although the council’s vote to ban the head wear was unanimous, school officials acknowledged that the West Los Angeles school does not have a significant gang problem. University High Principal Jack Moscowitz and campus police officer Walter Martin said the number of identified gang members at the 2,200-student school was minimal and that no specific incident had spawned the ban.

Noting that attempting to keep current with the ever-changing symbolism of gangs was extremely difficult, Martin said: “Rather than going crazy, it’s no hats, period. There’s no place for a hat at school.”

School districts and individual schools in and around Los Angeles have adopted bans of gang-related clothing in recent years in an effort to curb gang activity. A few have invoked specific hat bans similar to University High’s; more common are broad dress codes designed to restrict the kinds of clothing and accessories that might be construed as gang-related.

On Thursday, University High students protested the new rule during the noon hour--and in some cases all day--by refusing to remove their hats when asked to do so by a teacher.

When the lunch bell rang, student protesters spilled out of the school wearing all manner of headgear--paper hats, a marching band hat, baseball caps of every hue and team affiliation. One hat said, “I hate sea gulls,” while another sported a hand-lettered “Hell no! Hats won’t go” sign.