California mom Chelsea Boyle filed a lawsuit on July 13 against Viejo Elementary School for allegedly forcing her 7-year-old daughter to apologize to her class for writing “Any Life” on a Black Lives Matter drawing.
According to the Daily Mail, Boyle’s daughter, a first grader at Viejo Elementary school. The drawn picture in question reads the words “Black Lives Matter” with four round shapes colored in different dark skin tones to represent diversity in her class. Boyle’s daughter then wrote the phrase “Any Life” beneath that. Another student reportedly took a picture of the sign and showed it to their parents, who said they were offended by the addition.
The offended parent complained to the principal of the school about what Boyle drew on the BLM art, who decided to punish the girl by keeping her from recess while watching the other kids. She was also forced to apologize to her classmates and the teachers for her drawing.
The incident allegedly happened last year, but Boyle recently learned all the details. In an interview with Fox News, she talked about how she felt after learning.
“I was immediately angry, I didn’t know what had happened. I knew it was wrong fundamentally. My daughter’s rights were taken away, and I just started reaching out to find out what compelled speech was. I didn’t know what it was until I spoke to attorneys.” Boyle claimed
Alexander Haberbush, her family attorney, added, “Every single student in this country has a right to free speech. Now those rights are even stronger when a school tries to compel speech – when a school tries to make you say something as opposed to just telling you that you can’t say something. That’s exactly what has happened here.” He continued, “’It’s even worse than that because not only was she made to apologize for a totally innocuous drawing, one that I don’t know how you could look at that and see anything but racial tolerance and respect for other races in that picture. But not only was she made to apologize for that, she’s actually been punished on top of it.”
Haberbush said that he and Boyle began preparing a lawsuit against the school district after the Veijo administration refused her demand for an apology for the way they handled the situation.
“Their silence is unacceptable,” Haberbush told the outlet; he finished by saying that the administration’s actions were “a flagrant violation of the First Amendment rights of a student placed in their care.”
