A leftist judge has ruled that a school was justified in punishing a 7-year-old 1st grader for inadvertently pointing out that all lives matter.
After a lesson on Martin Luther King Jr. three years ago at Viejo Elementary School, the white daughter of Chelsea Boyle tried to comfort her black friend by drawing a picture that said, “Black Lives Matter” on it.
The girl also included the words “any life,” as well as oval depictions of a variety of skin colors.
Look at the drawing below:
When her friend took the drawing home, the friend’s mom grew irate and emailed the school saying she wouldn’t “tolerate any more messages given to [her daughter] at school because of her skin color” and that she “trust[ed] the school would address the issue,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
“The principal confronted [Boyle’s daughter] and told her the drawing was ‘inappropriate’ and ‘racist’ and that she couldn’t draw at school anymore and had to apologize to her friend,” the Chronicle noted. “When she returned to class, her teachers told her she was not allowed to play at recess for two weeks.”
Boyle for her part didn’t even learn about the incident until 2022, at which point she immediately demanded that her daughter receive an apology from the school. Yet the school brushed her off, leaving her with no other option but to file suit.
“Their silence is unacceptable,” Boyle’s attorney, Alexander Haberbush, told Fox News in 2022, arguing that what the school did was “a flagrant violation of the First Amendment rights of a student placed in their care.”
“As a child with ADHD, art is Ms. Boyle’s daughter’s main emotional outlet,” he continued. “The school has deprived her of that, and for what? For having the audacity to draw kids of all races getting along with the words ‘black lives matter,’ ‘any life’ matters.”
He added that his firm “will do everything in its power to ensure that Ms. Boyle’s voice and her daughter’s voice are heard and that the school acknowledges its wrongdoing.”
Sadly for the Boyle family, U.S. Central District Court Judge David Carter, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, disagreed with their take on the First Amendment.
NEW – Meet California District Court Leftist Judge David Carter…
Judge Carter ruled in favor of Viejo Elementary district teachers severely punishing a 7 year old girl for adding “any life” under a Black Lives Matter drawing claiming the child was too young for First Amendment… pic.twitter.com/m8wYm7rDr9
— Right Angle News Network (@Rightanglenews) July 18, 2024
“Undoubtedly, [Boyle’s daughter’s] intentions were innocent,” he admitted in his ruling. “[She] testified that she gifted the Drawing to [her friend] to make her feel comfortable after her class learned about Martin Luther King Jr.”
Yet, he continued, the drawing was not protected by the First Amendment.
“Students have the right to be free from speech that denigrates their race while at school,” he wrote, suggesting the incorporation of “any life” was somehow denigrating to black people.
He also referenced Boyle’s daughter’s age.
“An elementary school … is not a marketplace of ideas,” he wrote. “Thus, the downsides of regulating speech there is not as significant as it is in high schools, where students are approaching voting age and controversial speech could spark conducive conversation.”
And lastly, he approved the punishment, saying “A parent might second-guess [the principal’s] conclusion, but his decision to discipline [Boyle’s daughter] belongs to him, not the federal courts.”
The good news is the battle isn’t over yet. It’s now headed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals thanks to Caleb Trotter, a Pacific Legal Foundation attorney who filed a challenge this week.
“The whole situation was nuts,” he told the Chronicle. “As absurd as this case is, if that decision is allowed to stand … it is a precedent. If that view is allowed to survive and spread, the speech rights of countless elementary students around the country could be at risk. That was what really concerned me.”
Trotter for his part believes the judge made his decision based on a fallacious, bull propaganda piece from The New York Times that claims the phrase “all lives matter” and its derivatives are offensive.
Trotter added that if the Nine Circuit also sides against them, he might take the case all the way to the Supreme Court.
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V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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