Father wants dress code revised after teacher asks son to remove Marines t-shirt bearing guns

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Daniel McIntyre, the father of a 14-year-old student at Genoa-Kingston Middle School in Genoa, Ill., thinks school officials to reconsider their dress code after his son was asked to remove a Marines t-shirt bearing two interlocking guns.

"My son is very proud of the Marines, and, in fact, of all the services," McIntyre told Fox News. "So he wears it with pride. There are two rifles crossed underneath the word ‘Marines’ on the shirt, but to me that should be overlooked. It’s more about the Marines instead of the rifles."

McIntyre said his son was threatened with suspension when his teacher, Karen Deverell, spotted it during a class reading.

Superintendent Joe Burgess said the teacher could have consulted an administrator about the shirt, which he said did not explicitly violate school policy. According to the dress code, students "may not display lewd, vulgar or obscene or offensive language or symbols, including gang symbols."

"'This policy that they have in place can obviously be loosely interpreted, so they need to change it," McIntyre said.

The school district issued a statement Tuesday apologizing anyone who might have been offended by the incident.

"Genoa-Kingston Middle School is well known in the community for their support of our military," the school said. "We very much support the armed forces and were disheartened to learn of this matter through the media."

"We also take school safety very earnestly," the statement added, "and it needs to be recognized that is a topic that we also take very seriously and support our students and staff in providing a safe environment to learn, teach and work in on a daily basis.”