Design department bans controversial shirt for fashion show

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Mary Ritze sat wearing a Virgin Mary medallion around her neck, sporting a pair of tattoos on her arms and wearing a shirt that has been banned from the Texas Tech fashion show.

She's been to her professors and to the department chairwoman, but no one is accepting "God Hates Lubbock," at least not for the Department of Design's fashion show this evening.

Ritze, a senor apparel design and manufacturing major from The Woodlands, designed the burnt-orange shirt, which reads "God Hates Lubbock" in black letters, as a piece to be worn in the senior fashion show today.

On Thursday, she received the news that the department chairwoman, Lynn Huffman, had deemed the shirt too inappropriate to wear.

"I was shocked at first," Ritze said. "They waited until a day before the show to tell me this."

Ritze said she is not an atheist. Her parents were missionaries and she said she attends and participates in church every week.

"This is not an anti-God statement," Ritze said. "This is an anti-Lubbock shirt. I've always been the most outspoken person in the department. This is my way of saying I'm gone."

Huffman, chairwoman for the department of design, said she decided against allowing Ritze to wear the shirt because it represented an inside joke that the audience members wouldn't be privy to.

"It shuts everybody out," Huffman said. "This is a fundraising thing, and a large portion of our audience would be offended by that shirt."

Ritze said if someone was so persuaded against giving money by a simple shirt, then he or she was probably not going to give money in the first place.

Huffman said she spoke with Ritze about the shirt.

"She was very upset when she left my office," Huffman said. "It's not like this was her only piece in the show. She's going to show many other pieces of garment, but she got hung up on this one piece. I didn't understand it."

Huffman said the shirt would offend people from Lubbock, who will make up a major portion of the donating crowd during tonight's show.

"It's kind of like biting the hand that feeds you," Huffman said. "She's thinking short term, while we're thinking about what's best for the department in the future."

Huffman said the shirt issue has nothing to do with free speech or First Amendment Rights.

"(Huffman) told me I could wear the shirt in the free speech zone if I wanted," Ritze said. "She said this would give the department bad publicity."

Ritze said she felt that banning the shirt infringed on her rights. Huffman said she does not agree.

"You can free speech all you want, but when you represent this university, you have to think in broader terms," Huffman said. "This is something that represents our department and our education system. I think it's a bit of a black eye for us."

Ritze said today's fashion show would be made up of men in Speedos and women wearing outfits that leave nothing to the imagination.

"This is just a shirt," she said. "It was the only thing cut. (Huffman) said I could wear the shirt during the day, but I couldn't wear it during the show."

Lisa Hannah, a senior apparel design and manufacturing major from Dallas, said she support the fashion department on almost every occasion.

"I will always stand up for the department," Hannah said. "But this was my line. No matter how much the institute wants to be reasonable, there's no reason to censor a designer."

Ritze said she has spoken with other students in the department and various other people, and no one has objected to her shirt.

"No one finds any problems with it, except the woman concerned with the money," Ritze said. "This is very unfair. I was going to have one of my models wear it under another piece of clothing and then rip that piece off. I don't think that's going to work now because I don't want to get my model in the middle of this. This is my fight."

Hannah said the issue of censorship has never been a problem within the Art Department.

"No one censors the artists," Hannah said. "They can get away with anything. Nudity. Profanity."

Ritze has replaced the banned shirt with a pro-homosexual shirt reading, "Straight Not Narrow."

The fashion show will take place 7 p.m. today at the Lubbock Civic Center.

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