Despite School's Stalling, Student Persists in Memorializing 9/11
by Jim Brown
September 19, 2005
(AgapePress) - A Michigan high school student is speaking out about the ordeal she went through just to get a 9/11 memorial installed at her school. Administrators at Mercy High School in Farmington Hills initially rejected junior Kathryn Stickley's plan to honor victims of the 2001 terrorist attacks by placing 3,000 small American flags on campus. First, school officials told Stickley she could only put up 30 flags because 3,000 would be too expensive. However, when the teen got two nearby American Legion groups to donate more than 3,000 flags, administrators then told her the flags were a fire hazard.
After the Farmington Fire Department assured Stickley that the small flags were not a fire hazard, school officials told the student that putting up the flags posed a "logistics" problem. But Stickley did not buy any of the administrators' excuses. She believes their strong resistance to her patriotic effort was the result of their opposition to the war in Iraq, and notes that one school official told her the administration did not want to "step on people's toes who don't believe in the Iraq war."
Stickley suspects it was not other "people's toes" that the school was worried about. "It was personal politics of certain administrators who maybe personally aren't for the war," the high school junior asserts. "If we had this memorial and had a big deal about it, they felt like it was pro-war, which it really is not -- it's not about that at all. It's just about respecting people who had their lives taken away unfairly."
Finally, after exhausting a myriad of excuses why the 9/11 memorial could not be set up, the school finally relented and allowed Stickley to plant the flags, ostensibly because of all her "hard work." She suspects the school's desire to avoid negative publicity may have also had a lot to do with the officials' change of heart.
The incident has changed how Stickley views the people in charge of her school. "I honestly don't have as much respect for them as administrators as I did in the past," she says, "because they let their personal political opinions get involved in this activity, which I didn't think was appropriate. I don't feel uneasy though, because I feel like they're the ones who made the mistake in judgment."
The 3,000-flag memorial at Mercy High School was part of the Young America's Foundation 9/11: Never Forget Project, a national campaign encouraging students to participate in activities on their campuses in remembrance of 9/11 victims. Stickley says when people lose their lives, they should be remembered, regardless of anyone's politics.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
