High Schooler Ousted for Wearing Trump Border Wall Shirt Punches Back With Free Speech Lawsuit
Victoria Taft
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An Oregon high school student who was reportedly tossed out of class by a security guard for wearing a Trump t-shirt, has turned the tables on politically-correct school administrators.
He’s suing the administrators at Liberty High School for violating his first amendment rights.
Addison Barnes, an 18-year-old senior, wore the Trump-inspired t-shirt to a class discussion on immigration at the Hillsboro, Oregon school, which has a large population of Hispanic students.
Photo KGW-TV
The shirt depicted the logo of the fictional “Donald J. Trump Border Wall Construction Co..” Below the logo the shirt reads, “The Wall Just Got 10 Feet Taller” a reference to a comment made by then-candidate Trump on the campaign trail.
KGW-TV reported that the t-shirt made some students feel “uncomfortable.”
Barnes told KGW-TV that at first he complied with the administrator’s request after “she gave me the option to cover the shirt or get sent home.” But later had second thoughts, “I thought to myself, ‘You know this isn’t right, this is my First Amendment right to be able to wear this shirt.’ So I took off the jacket and the assistant principal had seen that and sent for a security guard to escort me out of class.”
The ACLU of Oregon issued a statement saying that while the organization thought the shirt was “mean spirited” and “xenophobic,” it wasn’t a “disturbance” and didn’t cross the line. In fact, the organization thought the school had “crossed the line when it required a student to remove” the t-shirt.
In a state that equates live sex shows to “political speech,” it is, to say the least, suspicious that a legitimate political statement on a t-shirt would be censored in this politically deep-blue state.
Barnes says that one of his teachers kept up a “sanctuary city” sign in her classroom all year and no one took it down.
This is just the latest incident like this on campus. A 7th grader wearing a “Fake News Network” was asked to remove it before a field trip to CNN. In September, 2017 two Georgia high schoolers were kicked out of class for wearing, “Make America Great Again” t-shirts to class. And a Missouri student was physically assaulted on a school bus for wearing his “Make America Great Again” ball cap. He was later suspended.
It’s easy to see what’s going on here. Students wearing messages not approved by politically correct leftists will not be tolerated – until they’re forced to. But if administrators plan to continue their assault on free speech at the school in Hillsboro, Oregon, they might want to first change the name of the school – or else Barnes’s attorneys could hit Liberty High School with a claim of false advertising too.
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