High School Student Gets $20K Settlement After Being Suspended for Using Term ‘Illegal Alien’
“Like space aliens or illegal aliens without green cards?”
That settlement cash will come in handy for tuition at his new school.
The College Fix reports:
HS student suspended for using term ‘illegal alien’ gets $20K settlement, apology
A high school student in North Carolina has been awarded a $20,000 settlement along with an apology from his school district after being suspended for saying “illegal alien” in English class last year.
As noted by The Fix, the student’s class at Central Davidson High School had been instructed to use the word “alien” in a vocabulary assignment.
To get clarification, Christian McGhee asked the teacher “Like space aliens or illegal aliens without green cards?”
An Hispanic classmate allegedly took offense at the question and threatened McGhee, which led to the teacher calling administrators for assistance.
Assistant Principal Eric Anderson ultimately deemed McGhee’s query “racially insensitive” and “disrespectful to Hispanic students.” The discipline write-up notes McGhee “made a racially insensitive comment […] about an alien ‘needing a green card.’”
The district student handbook states “schools may place restrictions on a student’s right to free speech when the speech is obscene, abusive, promoting illegal drug use, or is reasonably expected to cause a substantial disruption to the school day.”
McGhee’s mother Leah claimed she was unable to appeal Christian’s suspension, and despite it potentially affecting McGhee’s chances at a track scholarship, Anderson refused to expunge the suspension from his record.
McGhee and his parents sued, and just over a week ago they reached a settlement with the Davidson County Board of Education and Anderson.
According to The Carolina Journal, the board will “remove all references to racial bias in [Christian]’s school record, offer a public apology […] for mischaracterizing him in a racially biased way in his school records, and provide $20,000 in compensation.”
(The suspension actually “will remain otherwise unchanged” due to Christian’s comments causing a “classroom disruption.”)
The money award reportedly is “to help with the costs of the new private school Christian transferred to” as a result of the incident.
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Comments
if it didnt come out of the direct pockets of lefty admin
lefty still wins and there is no reason to celebrate
Settled for 2 low an amount.
Hispanic is not a race.
The offended student who made a threat should have been disciplined.
The principal should be fired for being too stupid to hold the job.
“(The suspension actually “will remain otherwise unchanged” due to Christian’s comments causing a “classroom disruption.”)”
Christian should now take offense at something some other student says, and see who gets suspended for causing the disruption. When it’s him, he can sue again.
Parents wisely switched him to a private school!
I’m surprised Christian was not compelled to change his name lest he bother the delicate senses of a muslim student.
It is a felony to hurt anyone’s feelings, so you better watch out!
It never fails to amaze me when our schools fail to recognize a teaching moment. This certainly was one such moment that could have positively impacted the students in the class. According to the Cato institute there US legal code uses eight different terms to refer to a person who is in this country without proper authorization. “Illegal Alien” is the term used most frequently. Inspired by Confucius (“If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things.”), the High School English teacher could have the students thinking about the terms used. Instead we have an over abundance of ignorance and caution leading to the use of euphemisms such as “undocumented” which unsurprisingly results in what Confucius predicted..
So true. Between acronyms and euphemisms, it’s becoming harder and harder to understand the news. One wants to scream, “WTF are you talking about?” (An example of an acronym used as a euphemism. But I’m sure everyone knows what I mean.
There are no teaching moments, only indoctrinating events.
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