8th grade boy suspended over wearing alleged blackface at La Jolla football game as student’s father, Daniel Ameduri insists boy was only wearing ‘customary’ war paint and that the school has infringed on his son’s first amendment rights to free speech along with school ‘woke policy’ seeking not to offend minority groups going overboard.
A California family is suing their 8th grader son’s middle school after the boy was suspended following accusations he was wearing blackface while attending a school football game.
The boy’s father, Daniel Ameduri, filed a lawsuit against the La Jolla school after his 13 year old son, received a two day suspension following the October 13 incident. The boy, J.A, according to the dad had simply adorned warrior paint, which the parent explained is customary for football games.
Appearing on Fox & Friends the father said: ‘It was a normal day, everything was normal. No one said anything. It was a normal football game and La Jolla won.’
Define blackface?
Ameduri stated his teen son putting black eye paint on like football players do while attending a high school game between La Jolla High School and Morse High School.
Ameduri said he was ‘shocked’ days later when his son was called into the principal’s office at Muirlands Middle School. He said no one complained at the game and there was ‘no incident’ involving his son.
Recalling the meeting, the dad said, ”He did blackface,’ and he was suspended for two days and was gonna be banned from sports.’
Despite protestations that the boy had only gone to the game dressed with ‘war paint’ and not ‘blackface’ the dad was unable to convince the school otherwise.
‘Anyone that has ever been to a sports game knows that this is very normal and these are kids that were playing hide and seek a few days prior at my house… half of the group are minorities, some of them African American, it’s just ridiculous that this would be a racial incident,’ the dad explained.
Seeking not to offend ‘largely black’ school
A disciplinary notice said J.A. ‘painted his face black at a football game’ and characterized the incident as an ‘offensive comment’ that was ‘intent to harm.’
Principal Jeff Luna reportedly said it was offensive because Morse High School, one of the schools whose team was playing, is ‘largely black,’ according to Cal Coast News.
Karin Sweigart, who is representing the family, disputed the principal’s allegations.
‘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 said.
‘And so for them to take an innocent activity of just having, you know, going to a football game and cheering for the other team and out of nowhere, with no evidence, say that this was a hate crime is just a ridiculous leap in logic,’ she told CBS 8.
‘He did not know what ‘blackface’ was, it was [a] new concept to him,’ she argued.
‘It’s just ludicrous.’
Does this look like ‘black face,’ or does it look like a young athlete emulating football heroes?
California 8th Grader Suspended and Banned From All Sporting Events For Wearing ‘Blackface’ To The High School Football Game #California #MuirlandMiddleSchool pic.twitter.com/dGO2omfbsN
— SULLY🇺🇸 (@SULLY10X) November 14, 2023
Had boy intended on being racist?
Referencing a lawsuit filed in the Southern District of California which defined out of school speech rights, the lawyer continued:
‘There was a recent case just in the last couple of years at the Supreme Court where they talked about the out-of-school speech rights that students have to be able to express themselves. It was very clear that unless you have a substantial disruption on the campus, schools cannot restrict the out-of-school speech rights of students,’ she added. ‘Here the school is just going way beyond the constitutional strictures that they have to be able to regulate student speech.’
Sweigart also accused the schools of failing to provide due process.
J.A. said he never meant to offend or harm anyone.
‘The only people showing absolute racism right now is the school and the school administrators,’ Ameduri said. ‘There wasn’t even a real investigation.’
The suit seeks to get the suspension removed from the boy’s school record, with the Center for American Liberty stating it ‘could impact his ability to gain acceptance to figure high schools, colleges and certain occupations.’
To date, the San Diego Unified School District has declined to respond to media overture for comment.
