A 13-year-old girl was pulled out of class Wednesday because she was wearing an "anti-discrimination" T-shirt at her Southern Indiana middle school, her parents say.

Renee Williams said her 13-year-old daughter was wearing a shirt Wednesday at Highland Hills Middle School in Georgetown that said, "Why be racist, sexist, homophobic, or transphobic when you can just be quiet?"

In a Facebook post, Williams included a photo of her daughter wearing the shirt and her daughter's written account of the situation.

The student wrote that she was pulled from a physical education class by a teacher and told that her shirt was "breaking dress code."

The girl wrote she was taken to the school's office, where the gym teacher asked Highland Hills Middle School Principal Wendy Ivey if the shirt, in fact, violated the school's dress code.

According to the student, Ivey replied, "Not necessarily, but from a distance the words you see are sex(ist) and homo(phobic). She said that my shirt was inappropriate and could be seen as disrespectful."

The student wrote that Ivey gave her three options: Turn the shirt inside out, put on a jacket or wear a shirt used for physical education class.

The middle school student said she agreed to put her hoodie on over her shirt after gym class and then went to lunch, where a teacher was with her friends at a table.

More:Kentucky high school students told to remove T-shirts celebrating the LGBTQ community

The teacher read through the school's dress code and said "nothing in the rulebook has anything to do with your shirt," the student wrote.

So she took off her hoodie. But as she left the lunchroom, she said Ivey appeared and confronted her.

According to the student, Ivey said she could not wear the shirt "because it has my opinion and sexuality on it."

"She said this in front of 6 LGBTQ+ kids," the student wrote. "We all feel like we are being targeted."

She said other staff told her that nothing was wrong with her shirt but that Ivey eventually brought her a different T-shirt and said, "You can put this on and go to class or you can stay here."

"I put my hoodie back on ONLY because I didn't want to be in trouble with my parents," the girl wrote. "My moms showed up and said that I would be in NO trouble at home so I decided to keep my sweatshirt off."

Williams did not respond to Courier Journal requests for an interview but told WHAS that her daughter decided to go home with her parents Wednesday instead of staying at school.

On Thursday, WHAS reported some of the girl's classmates walked out of class to stand in solidarity with her at school.

Williams expressed disappointment in her Facebook post over how her daughter was "singled out and treated" by some school officials.

A spokesman for the New Albany-Floyd County School Corp. provided the Courier Journal with a copy of the district's "student dress and appearance" policy.

The policy begins by stating that "student dress and appearance should be respectful and not interfere with the learning environment."

It goes on to describe restricted clothing, which includes "any item deemed inappropriate by a building administrator."

"As a school district, we do all we can to maintain the integrity of a focused age appropriate learning environment," district spokesman Bill Briscoe told the Courier Journal in an email. "This includes minimizing potential distractions as they arise."

Williams' daughter closed her written account of her experience by calling out school officials.

"They have no right to tell any of us what we can and can't be," the student wrote. "We all feel that we aren't able to be 100% ourselves at Highland Hills."

Reach Billy Kobin at bkobin@courierjournal.com or 502-582-7030. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/subscribe.