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Bill Mahon, vice president for university relations, said six people have contacted Penn State to voice their objections to the shirt's design.
"Six complaints is not a controversy," Mahon wrote Foxnews.com. "Students submit shirt designs to the student paper each year. Students then vote for their favorite design and they are sold in the campus bookstore."
Stephanie Bennis, a senior at the school, said she created the shirt's design in March with fellow public relations major Emily Sabolsky, and in no way did they intend to create religious overtones. Like Mahon, she said the single blue stripe is a nod to the university's football program.
"That was the entire idea," she said. "And all we thought was normally wording goes right across the chest. That's truly the reason why we did it."
Bennis said she was "very shocked" when she learned the university had received complaints about the design.
"It's just sad to see that in this day and age, the most offensive thing on a shirt can be what people see as a religious symbol," she said.
"Are we going to ban lowercase t's in the alphabet? Where do you draw the line?"
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