Stonington — At Thursday night’s Board of Education meeting, board member Jack Morehouse related a story he said he heard from his daughters that in 2016 a black student at Stonington High School was told he had to remove his Black Lives Matter shirt while a female student last year was allowed to wear a shirt emblazoned with the Confederate flag.

When Morehouse said the anecdote might not be true, high school senior Ally Kapell, the student representative to the school board, told Morehouse that it was in fact true.

Morehouse’s comments came as he recommended the board come up with a plan about how to deal with student expression involving issues, such as race, that are at the forefront across the country.

“We need to think ahead of time about what is acceptable,” he said. “We need to preemptively sit down and have a discussion.”

“Rather than wait for the heat of the moment when there is an incident and a kid comes to school and they express themselves and it turns out to be a big full-blown discussion and none of us can agree on what in the public schools should be allowed or not allowed ... we need to talk about that,” he said.

He added that while he believes students have the right to express themselves, that should not impede learning or be used to bully another student.

Board Chairwoman Alexa Garvey agreed and said the board should discuss what can be done at an upcoming goal-setting meeting and then send those suggestions to the board’s Policy Committee so they can be implemented.

On June 4, the former black student, Jon Humphrey, posted a photo of himself wearing the Black Lives Matter shirt in 2016.

He wrote that in his shock over the murder of Freddie Gray, a black man who died in 2015 in the back of a Baltimore police van, he bought the shirt to support the Black Lives Matter movement.

“When I arrived at Stonington High School that morning I was told to take it off and I refused. That whole day was spent being pulled out of class and being called in and out of the office, threatened with disciplinary action and told I was not allowed to wear this shirt because my assistant principal could 'make whatever rules he wanted.' The moral of the story is I fought for my rights and presented my schools administration with Supreme Court Rulings that actually stated them forcing me to take off that shirt was illegal! I walked out of that office victorious because I fought for my rights and did not allow them to be stripped from me. (heart emoji) BLACK, WHITE, HISPANIC whatever you are FIGHT THE GOOD OLE FIGHT AND YOU WILL BECOME VICTORIOUS!”

On Friday night, Humphrey said that at first he had to put a sweatshirt on to cover the shirt but then he took it off in gym and it "just became a big thing."

He said school administrators told him the shirt was inappropriate because it was "racially specific."

He said he did some quick research that day and found a Supreme Court ruling about the rights of Vietnam protesters to wear bracelets about the war and presented that to administrators.

"It was not a racial slur. You have First Amendment rights," he said.

Humphrey, one of just a few black students in the school, said the controversy came in the wake of Gray's death and the election of President Donald Trump. He said the atmosphere at the school was "boiling," as there were rumors some students would be wearing "White Lives Matter" shirts.

"So the school was trying to throw cold water on it. They were trying to nip everything in the bud," he said.

Four years ago, Black Lives Matter T-shirts were controversial but now have become mainstream at recent protests across the country, being worn by both white and black people.

"I fought for what is right and now it's getting attention," Humphrey said.

Asked by The Day on Thursday night about the incidents involving Humphrey and the girl wearing the Confederate flag shirt, high school Principal Mark Friese wrote, “Again, statements made without context. No one was suspended or disciplined.”

Friese did not respond to a request by The Day to provide the context he referenced.

j.wojtas@theday.com