Schools may require clothes from Wal-Mart

It's long been true that one of the key reasons some schools require uniforms is that they have contracts with certain suppliers and retailers forcing students to buy the uniforms from these firms.

But when that store is Wal-Mart, it's particularly outrageous.

In the Jackson-Madison County Schools in Tennessee, the school board is seriously considering adopting a uniform policy requiring students to buy their uniforms at Wal-Mart, of all places. Under this proposed sumptuary law, Wal-Mart has been named the official seller of the standardized attire.

Even if uniforms in public schools weren't unconstitutional, there's the issue of forcing folks to buy them at a particular store that they may object to anyway.

I've boycotted Wal-Mart for years. I don't think I've buyed a thing there since the era of helmet hair. I wouldn't even buy a pack of bubble gum there now. Reasons for this boycott include Wal-Mart's exceptionally predatory business practices and its militant suppression of labor unions.

Why the hell should someone lift a boycott just to satisfy a school (especially when it's a school funded by taxpayer dollars)?

Of course the Jackson Sun did its part to advance the right-wing cause by printing a misleading, one-sided headline.

I guess lockstep tyranny like uniforms is to be expected in a school system that still uses CORPORAL PUNISHMENT, of all things (in 2008, no less). (The school must like being sued, I guess.)

(Source: http://www.jacksonsun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080610/NEWS01/806100307)