Pro-Peace T-Shirts Get Campus Talking

Caitlin Orr was trying to spark debate on the merits of a war against Iraq among fellow students at Fullerton Union High School. The 16-year-old junior has done that and more with the “Think Peace” T-shirts she’s been distributing on campus the last few weeks.

Even teachers are taking sides in the discussion, and the campaign -- not surprisingly -- caused some consternation among campus administrators.

“I think it has been more of an issue with the faculty than the students,” said English teacher Leonardo Indelicato, who has been wearing one of the T-shirts. “It is very exciting and very revealing. You get to know the people you work with at a very different level.”

The shirts have brought out the political sensibilities of the adults entrusted with educating the nearly 2,000 students at the north Orange County campus.

“As teachers, we are supposed to teach students to look at things critically,” Indelicato said. “It is wonderful for [students] to see teachers with different points of view working together. We have a strong sense of family here.”

There have been tense moments too. Some teachers were offended by the shirts, Indelicato said, even moved to tears. One confronted him recently.

“She said she had lost someone in the Sept. 11 attacks and that we should support the [U.S.] government,” he said.

Not blindly, argues Caitlin, a vivacious, fast-talking teenager whose orange backpack is adorned with beads, peace signs and slogans.

At her family’s Fullerton home earlier this week, she was wearing one of her T-shirts, a black crew neck with a white peace sign on the front and the words “Think peace. Support the anti-war movement.”

“People get a little caught up in saluting the flag instead of supporting the people who surround the flag,” said Caitlin, an A student and member of the school’s soccer, track, debate and speech teams. “My shirts are more of an effort to bring out the hidden peace activists.... There are lots of people who feel the same way I do, and they need the boost.”

Caitlin said she has sold 100 T-shirts and is getting more orders every day. She charges $15 each to cover costs and to pay for peace buttons she distributes free.

The shirts come with a note from Caitlin urging people to wear them to school each Friday and to “Rock on!” They began popping up around campus two Fridays ago.

At first, though, Caitlin had to pay a visit to the principal’s office. She was told she couldn’t sell them on campus because the activity was not sanctioned by a recognized student group. Instead, she collects the money after school hours but is in the process of forming a student peace group. School administrators did not return calls requesting comment.

The T-shirts have gotten the students talking -- and debating. Caitlin’s efforts were featured in the school’s newspaper, The Pleiades.

She also wrote an antiwar column for the paper detailing her views.

“Sept. 11 was an atrocious tragedy,” she wrote. “I am not understating the profound grief it caused, [but] Americans should consider why it is that so many countries, especially in the Middle East, hate us so much.”

In a counterpoint column, fellow student Stephen Huck wrote, “I would invite all those who favor peace to take your signs to Iraq. I’m sure [Saddam Hussein] would be happy to honor every one of you with a bullet.”

It all makes history teacher Jeff Rupp proud.

“They are using their heads,” said Rupp, who also has been wearing the T-shirt -- not so much to protest war, he said, but to support Caitlin’s efforts to initiate discussion.

A Vietnam War veteran, Rupp said he has been criticized by teachers opposed to the T-shirts. They, like the students, are “entitled to their opinions,” he said.

Caitlin’s parents are proud too.

“You hear how apathetic kids are these days, and she has never been,” said her mother, Lynne Orr, a pacifist. “I would hope I could support anything she does, but it is easier when it is something that we really believe in.”

Caitlin designed the T-shirts, borrowing for the back a refrain from a bumper sticker she saw on a recent trip to UC Berkeley: “War doesn’t decide who is right, only who’s left.”

“Berkeley is a proving place for activists,” said Caitlin, who is considering attending that university, Stanford and Ivy League schools. “I am a little activist in the making.”