A big controversy unfolded during a vocabulary assignment at Central Davidson High School in Lexington, North Carolina.
The word that caused the kerfuffle was “alien.”
Student Christian McGhee asked his teacher if she was referring to space aliens or illegal aliens without green cards.
According to the Carolina Journal, another student took offense and threatened to fight Christian. That led to a trip to the assistant principal’s office.
“I didn’t make a statement directed towards anyone; I asked a question,” the teenager told the Carolina Journal. “I wasn’t speaking of Hispanics because everyone from other countries needs green cards, and the term “illegal alien” is an actual term that I hear on the news and can find in the dictionary.”
Long story short: Christian, who did nothing wrong, was suspended for three days. School officials accused him of being offensive and disrespectful.
It turns out that a number of his classmates are Hispanic.
Christian says he was not trying to offend anyone and he takes exception to those who accuse him of racism or xenophobia.
“Because of his question, our son was disciplined and given THREE days OUT of school suspension for ‘racism,’” Christian’s mother wrote in an email obtained by the Carolina Journal. “He is devastated and concerned that the racism label on his school record will harm his future goal of receiving a track scholarship. We are concerned that he will fall behind in his classes due to being absent for three consecutive days.”
My radio listeners were absolutely furious that the teenager was punished.
“If this is happening in a conservative state this is a dangerous precedent to set especially since we are supposed to have freedom of speech. There’s nothing about what he said that’s racist. That’s a fact,” said “Susan” from North Carolina.
“What happened to him is extremely dangerous for our whole country,” she added.
It seems to me that there may be a good many illegal aliens in Christian’s classroom.