In response to recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) presence in Minnesota, Park’s STORiole planned to produce and sell anti-ICE t-shirts at the school store to show support for Park’s immigrant community at a time when many are being targeted and are afraid to leave their homes. The sale of the t-shirts would also serve as a fundraiser for The STORiole’s BirdFeeder program, a non-profit program aiming to provide food for families who don’t currently feel safe to go grocery shopping. The request for production was denied by administration, and The STORiole was prohibited from producing and selling anti-ICE t-shirts to the Park community and the larger public. While administration attempted to collaborate with The STORiole to compromise on a new design that followed school guidelines, The STORiole decided not to move forward with the production and sale of the redesigned t-shirts.
CEO of The STORiole, senior Zach Stillman, said the t-shirts were intended to show support for the Park community while also fundraising for The STORiole’s BirdFeeder program to provide food for families in need. He said a portion of the profits from every t-shirt sale would go toward funding The BirdFeeder.
“Our fundraising (for The BirdFeeder) was lacking and we needed the ability to raise money, so as part of that, in connection with The STORiole, we launched the idea of supporting our community through (selling) shirts that got branded as (anti-ICE) shirts,” Stillman said. “As part of the $15 shirt, five dollars would be donated back to The BirdFeeder. Over 225 shirts were purchased. It’s about $1,200 that would be donated back to The BirdFeeder.”
A message was sent to STORiole customers regarding their canceled purchase. The district wrote the first version of the message, including inaccurate information, one being that The STORiole lacked proper permission from the artist of the t-shirt design. In response, The STORiole wrote their own message with details regarding the cancellation. After further delays in communication with administration, the messages were merged into one and sent out as signed by The STORiole and BirdFeeder Management Team.
Senior Audrey Mancini said Park’s administration denied The STORiole’s request to release the anti-ICE t-shirts for sale to the public, and drafted a message to send to anybody who had already pre-ordered a shirt.
“Administration got involved, and said we cannot put out these shirts,” Mancini said. “For a while, nobody gave us a straight answer, so we talked to communications for the district. They told us we could not make (the t-shirts). They wrote us a statement to send to everybody who had bought the shirts.”
Stillman said even though The STORiole is financially self-sufficient through fundraising and independent profits, their funds still flow through the 50 fund because The STORiole is a class and is overseen by the district. He said this allowed the district to prohibit The STORiole from selling the anti-ICE t-shirts.
“Although all the shirts are produced by The STORiole class and not paid for by the district, there is a technicality that funds come from the district, even though we’re self-funded, and so they were able to shut us down in that respect,” Stillman said.
According to Principal LaNisha Paddock, denying The STORiole the right to produce and sell the original design was due to a lack of proper permissions and a conflict of interest. She said under Park policy, school resources aren’t to be used to release political messages.
“Essentially, the decision was based on district guidelines regarding conflicts of interest and permitted use of school resources,” Paddock said. “The design did not have the necessary permissions for the school-based production and sale. We weren’t allowed to use school resources for political messaging and commercial advertising.”
Stillman said spotty communication between administration and The STORiole following the denial of the first design was frustrating and led to a series of delays in production and communication with the public. He said while he understands the need for following district guidelines, he hoped for quicker communication and more urgency from administration.
“It definitely felt restricting,” Stillman said. “Obviously, (administration) has things that they have to abide by and certain regulations and policies. I understand that, so more of the frustration was coming from the speed in their response where it felt like it was very low (priority) for them. It took us a while to set up a meeting, to hear from them and hear their perspective, and that caused a lot of delays on our end, a lot of customer complaints, and a lot of issues. We respected that they had to abide by certain things, but we wanted to feel more of an urgency from them.”
Paddock said as a team, administration acknowledges and values the Park community’s efforts to show up for one another during challenging times.
“We are very appreciative of the support that our community has for being inclusive, making sure that everybody is getting what they need, especially in a really difficult time,” Paddock said.
According to Mancini, in the past The STORiole has sold t-shirts with designs centered around various current events and movements. She said in recent years, the line between social movement and political movement has overlapped.
“We print shirts for Black Lives Matter, GSA (Gender Sexuality Alliance), which are pretty strong political movements, and the district has said that Black Lives Matter is a social movement, which it is, but it’s also a political movement, especially given the recent years, but they’re okay with (those shirts being sold),” Mancini said.
Paddock said she sees a social movement as supporting and showing pride for a part of someone’s identity. She said she defines a political movement as one that is more centered around the government, and having a political message on the first shirt design gave administration reason to prohibit the sale.
“A social movement like Black Lives Matter or Pride, I see that as identity-affirming or identity support, whereas a political movement is more in alignment with governmental things or being partisan,” Paddock said. “It came down to the political nature and the particular messaging in alignment with not being able to use school resources to fund that.”
According to Mancini, she cared deeply about the purpose and message of support behind the anti-ICE t-shirts. She said it is important to The STORiole to continue building the impact of The BirdFeeder program, along with strengthening their support for the immigrant community at Park.
“These shirts were really important to us,” Mancini said. “One, we want to raise money and spread awareness about The BirdFeeder program. We had been getting many donations, but we wanted to be able to use the money to go further than we were and to continue providing support. We also wanted to show that we are standing with our immigrant neighbors, despite everything that’s going on. We wanted them to know that they are supported, and we wanted to support all of the Park community that’s been fighting against the federal agents. It’s everything that Park as a whole and as a city has been standing for.”
