California Family Suing School Officials After 8th Grade Son's Suspension For Wearing 'Blackface'
A California middle-schooler was suspended and banned from certain school sporting events after allegedly wearing blackface to a high school football game in October. It was quickly and easily determined that the eighth-grader wasn't wearing blackface, and now his family is suing school officials.
The middle-schooler - known as J.A. for privacy reasons - along with his father Danel Ameduri and their lawyer, Karin Sweigard, joined 'Fox and Friends' to share details of the lawsuit.
"We’re suing the principal directly, the superintendent, and then the people who made the decision to rubber stamp the principal’s ridiculous decision to suspend J.A.," Sweigart explained.
Harmeet Dhillon, the CEO and found of The Center For American Liberty which is the legal team funding the lawsuit, shared a strong message about the situation involving J.A.
“School officials shouldn’t sacrifice their students’ futures on the altar of cancel culture,” Dhillon said. “No reasonable person would believe that a middle school kid wearing athletic eye black intended to intimidate anyone or send a racist message. These baseless allegations do nothing but tarnish an innocent student’s reputation and jeopardize his educational future.”
While J.A. was accused of wearing blackface, the reality is that he was simply wearing eye black. Apparently, no officials at his school know what eye black is nor understand kids around the world use it to emulate pro athletes.
(Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression via New York Post)
A week after the 'incident,' J.A.’s principal at Muirland Middle School called a meeting with his parents. School officials then informed them that the student would face a two-day suspension and may not attend any future athletic events in the district.
A disciplinary notice said J.A. “painted his face black at a football game” and labeled the incident as an “offensive comment, intent to harm.”
Principal Jeff Luna also noted the face paint was offensive because Morse High School, one of the teams playing in the football game, is “largely black,” according to Cal Coast News.
READ: DEADSPIN FINALLY UPDATES STORY ABOUT CHILD CHIEFS FAN IN ‘BLACKFACE’ AMID LEGAL THREAT
Ameduri explained that he was "shocked" when his son was called into the principal's office while noting that no one at the game complained given there was "no incident." J.A. also alleged that a black security guard at the game gave him pointers on how to make the eye black look better.
"I asked him, ‘How did it look?’ and he said, ‘The spikes need to go higher,’" J.A. said.
His father made the point that the only racism taking place in this situation is coming from the school itself.
"The only people showing absolute racism right now is the school and the school administrators," Ameduri said. "There wasn’t even a real investigation."