By Mary Sasa

Staff Writer 

About 20 members of the Shakopee High School junior class were sent home Friday for wearing shirts considered inappropriate by school principal Jim Murphy.

The students wore red shirts reading, “There’s no debate, we dominate. We’re the class of 2008.”

Murphy sent the students home, saying they could change and come back, but weren’t allowed on school grounds wearing the shirt. If they were to return wearing it, they’d be suspended for insubordination.

The offensive word? “Dominate.”

“We’ve had problems in the past,” Murphy said. “A group of kids thinking they’re superior, making comments to other classes, kids afraid  …  ”

Students weren’t happy, and neither were some parents.

“I’m all about school spirit,” said Patricia Illikainen, a mother of one of the students. “I’m just dumbfounded over this thing … There was nothing bad about the shirts. Not about knocking anyone around, not drugs, not violence, nothing.”

Some students and parents thought the theme for homecoming, “Barbecue the Wingers,” was far more offensive than the word “dominate.” The football team was to play the Red Wing Wingers Friday night.

The juniors made the shirts in one of the school colors anticipating homecoming and showing their class spirit, they said.

“They’re a close-knit class,” Illikainen said. “They do everything together.”