SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – A black teenager says he was escorted out of his high school graduation ceremony in Sacramento by three deputies for refusing to remove his kente cloth, a traditional Ghanaian silk and cotton fabric.
Nyree Holmes said Saturday he wore the decorative cloth atop his graduation robes to have something that represented his culture during the ceremony at Sacramento’s Sleep Train Arena on Tuesday.
The 18-year-old student from Cosumnes Oaks High School in Elk Grove, California, says the school’s student activities director told him he was violating graduation dress requirements. He says he tried to have a dialogue with him, but he wouldn’t and instead tried to prevent him from walking onstage and called authorities.
Holmes says that when he got off stage, there were three sheriff’s deputies waiting to escort him out.
He says the school principal met with his parents and apologized for the incident.