LOS ANGELES – I’m sure if I had done this when I was in school, I would have been sent home and would have been in serious trouble not only with the school principal but with my parents as well. How times have changed.

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The Los Angeles Times reports on two separate days involving two separate, male students, English teacher Lynn McGonigle observed those students wearing a not-so-subtle T-shirt with a giant photo of a bare-chested woman in heels, fishnet stockings and a thong with the word “hoes” covering her eyes and the message ‘WE ENJOY THEM BUT WE NEVER LOVE THEM’ in her class.

She’s probably seen a lot in her 27 years of teaching at Garfield High School. But this set her back on her heels. This was more than just breaking the dress code. She said this was “heartbreaking.” Obviously, she told the boys not to wear those to school again.

But she went further than that. She visited the mall that sold them and complained that not only was she offended by the shirt, but so were some of her female students and other teachers. To her surprise, the mall agreed and pulled the foul shirts from the sales floor.

Even more surprising. She emailed Street Dreams, the company that manufactured the shirts expecting they would just laugh at her. Instead, they apologized and emailed back that “… obviously this shirt was made in bad taste. We are just clearing what’s left and this shirt will no longer be available in stores.”

But McGonigle still wasn’t completely satisfied. She used the incident as a teachable moment by having discussions with her freshman students. She was somewhat disappointed.

“The boys were laughing and being silly,” she said.  A few girls agreed that the T-shirts bothered them, but others supported the boys’ points of view.  They said if you’re courting sex you’re a ‘hoe’ and you don’t deserve respect.

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Nonetheless, McGonigle was approached after class by some of the girls who asked her to help them start a campus feminist club with a name that “won’t offend and an agenda that embraces everyone.”

That’s all well and good. But back up. Why was McGonigle forced to deal with this herself in the first place, undoubtedly on her own time? Why weren’t the T-shirt wearers sent to the principal for a reprimand? Why didn’t some school administrator catch these two in a hallway and confront them? Why weren’t they forced to remove the shirts and wear something else for the rest of the day, or sent to detention or sent home? Most of all, why weren’t the parents confronted and asked why they would let their children wear such offensive clothing?

How times have changed.