High School Student Suspended for Posing With Pro-Trump MAGA Flag and Sweatshirt
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Last Friday, Perry High School in Gilbert, Ariz., suspended student Logan Jones after a security officer reprimanded her as she posed for photos in a "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) sweater while holding a pro-Trump "Make America Great Again" flag. On Wednesday, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) sent a demand letter warning of legal action unless the school dropped the suspension. The school agreed to allow Jones to return to school that day but it refused to remove the suspension from her record.
"Public schools have a duty to respect the legitimate free expression of students that the First Amendment guarantees to them," Tyson Langhofer, ADF senior counsel and director of the Center for Academic Freedom, wrote in a statement Thursday. "While it’s good that the school is allowing Logan to return to school, it isn’t acceptable that this unjust suspension will remain on her record."
ADF will not accept this state of affairs. "As we continue discussions with the school, we are also consulting with Logan and her mother to determine what our next steps will be if the school doesn’t do the right thing and remove the suspension," Langhofer added.
According to the demand letter , Jones and her friends had dressed in patriotic and USA-themed clothing for a "Party in the USA Day" on Friday of Spirit Week.
"Immediately after school was dismissed at 2:14 p.m., [Jones] and a few of her friends went to one of the outdoor common areas of campus to take pictures together before they went home," the letter reads. "This is a common practice for [Jones] and many other students and it happens virtually every day after school without any interference by school officials. Less than five minutes after they arrived, while [Jones] and her friend were taking a picture in their MAGA sweatshirts and holding a flag that said 'Trump' and 'Make America Great Again,' a School Resource Officer approached and ordered [Jones] and her friends to leave."
Jones immediately obeyed and started packing up to leave. The officer took photos of her and her friends with his phone, began following her as she left campus, and then ordered her to give him her name. Jones asked why he needed her name, as she was complying with his order. At that point, the officer told her to speak with Vice Principal Heather Patterson.
Jones called her mother and told her about the situation. Her mother said she would come to the school herself and told Jones not to speak with anyone until she arrived. At the office, Jones was again asked to give her name. She "politely replied that her mother was on her way to the office and that her mother had instructed her not to answer any questions until she arrived."
Once the mother arrived, a brief discussion ensued between the mother, Principal Dan Serrano, Vice Principal Patterson, and the officer. Principal Serrano left, saying, "I am tired of hearing this. Logan Jones, you are suspended for 10 days. Get off of school property."
Jones was allegedly suspended for failing to identify herself to school officials, yet ADF argued that "this reason was mere pretext."
"Contrary to the stated reason, there is ample evidence to establish that you imposed the suspension against [Jones] based on a disagreement with the viewpoint of [Jones's] message," the letter states. "Multiple videos demonstrate the hostility that School officials displayed towards the messages expressing support for President Trump and his MAGA slogan. And it is our understanding that other students have been punished as well for expressing similar viewpoints."
"This blatant censorship of [Jones's] speech violates the First Amendment," the letter declares.
In dropping the suspension, the school seems to have recognized that punishing Jones for her pro-Trump and MAGA demonstration was a violation of her free speech. Even so, the school reportedly is refusing to drop the suspension from the girl's record.
No school should suspend a student for expressing a political viewpoint. Sadly, many liberals have stigmatized Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan as hateful, and it appears these school officials consider MAGA unacceptable. This school should have learned from the backlash and lawsuits after the media ran with the story that the MAGA hat-wearing Covington High School boys were haters.
The school's action violates the First Amendment. Students have the right to wear MAGA sweaters and hold Trump flags. This is outrageous.
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“ADF will not accept this state of affairs. "As we continue discussions with the school, we are also consulting with Logan and her mother to determine what our next steps will be if the school doesn’t do the right thing and remove the suspension," Langhofer added.
According to the demand letter , Jones and her friends had dressed in patriotic and USA-themed clothing for a "Party in the USA Day" on Friday of Spirit Week.
"Immediately after school was dismissed at 2:14 p.m., [Jones] and a few of her friends went to one of the outdoor common areas of campus to take pictures together before they went home," the letter reads. "This is a common practice for [Jones] and many other students and it happens virtually every day after school without any interference by school officials. Less than five minutes after they arrived, while [Jones] and her friend were taking a picture in their MAGA sweatshirts and holding a flag that said 'Trump' and 'Make America Great Again,' a School Resource Officer approached and ordered [Jones] and her friends to leave."
Jones immediately obeyed and started packing up to leave. The officer took photos of her and her friends with his phone, began following her as she left campus, and then ordered her to give him her name. Jones asked why he needed her name, as she was complying with his order. At that point, the officer told her to speak with Vice Principal Heather Patterson.
Jones called her mother and told her about the situation. Her mother said she would come to the school herself and told Jones not to speak with anyone until she arrived. At the office, Jones was again asked to give her name. She "politely replied that her mother was on her way to the office and that her mother had instructed her not to answer any questions until she arrived."
Once the mother arrived, a brief discussion ensued between the mother, Principal Dan Serrano, Vice Principal Patterson, and the officer. Principal Serrano left, saying, "I am tired of hearing this. Logan Jones, you are suspended for 10 days. Get off of school property."”
I hope she scores serious punitive damages from these bigots. The school officials should be fired.
Both would be a good start.
Speaking of punitive damages related to kids in school, the Covington boys who were defamed are suing CNN as well as the Bezos Post.
....“Now you say you've seen the tape; if you took the time to look at the full context of what happened that day, Nicholas Sandmann did absolutely nothing wrong. He was, as I've said to others, he was the only adult in the room. But you have a situation where CNN couldn't resist the idea that here's a guy with a young boy, that Make America Great Again cap on. So they go after him.”
Wood continued: “The CNN folks were online on Twitter at 7 a.m retweeting the little one-minute propaganda piece that had been put out. … They're out there right away going after this young boy. And they maintain it for at least two days. Why didn't they stop and just take an hour and look through the Internet and find the truth and then report it? Maybe do that before you report the lies.”
Wood then detailed the timing of the suit, saying it will be issued “Monday, Tuesday at the latest.”
“I've got some young, smart lawyers that are working hard as we can," he told Levin. "Double-checking, and listen, when we file complaints, we've investigated it because we want to get it right. Maybe CNN can learn from that."
Wood month filed suit last month against The Washington Post. The suit calls for $250 million in compensatory and punitive damages over the paper's coverage of the confrontation, an encounter that went viral on social media. He told Fox News that the claim against CNN is apt to be even higher....
What an egregious and blatant violation of the student's right to free speech. It would be one thing if her speech was obscene or disrupted the learning process, but that does not appear to be the situation here.
It's no wonder people don't understand their rights. The people responsible for educating them don't know them either.
Those secular progressives in charge at that and other schools where similar things have happened to conservative and or Trump supporting students know them full well and are trampling upon them because they hate the student POV and because they can unless a group like ADF or ACLJ steps in and backs them down with demand letters and threat of punitive legal action. This is why the SPLC labels ADF and others as a hate group, because they prevent the implementation of secular progressive dogma in so many ways.
Anybody from or living in Arizona knows that Gilbert and the Phoenix metropolitan area has a fairly high percentage of progressive leftist liberals compared to most of the rest of the state. Not surprising that this kind of sordid action would come from that area. Interesting that zero lefties have weighed in on this so far...
What could they say that could possibly justify the actions of the school security man and the school principal in this case?
Real liberals used to support free speech. They understood that it meant putting up with speech you objected to. That's what tolerance is - putting up with something you don't like. Modern leftists are not liberals anymore. They're totalitarian.
Exactly. Now they create new reasons why people shouldn’t be allowed to disagree with them and use technology to try to shield 🛡 themselves from speech and sources that they don’t like.