Posted on 08/19/2023 7:26:31 AM PDT by Fiji Hill
A North Carolina middle school student was suspended for three days over a conversation he had with classmates about Jesus Christ.
The 12-year-old is a seventh grader at Envision Science Academy in Wake Forest. He is also a devout Christian.
The young man’s father told me that he received a phone call from the assistant dean saying he needed to attend a meeting about his son’s “continued behavior.”
Several of the boy’s classmates had started a conversation during the previous school year about Christianity and his son had explained how they needed a relationship with Jesus Christ to go to Heaven.
“She told me that my son had violated Title IX,” the dad told me. “The two kids who had complained interjected themselves into the conversation and ridiculed my son about his faith and how stupid it was.”
The dad told me school’s dean that the other students had been taunting his son, but that did not seem to matter.
“She said they were going to suspend him for borderline harassment,” he told me. “They took the word of the other kids above my son’s word.”
It certainly appears that the other students set a trap for the Christian kid and he was suspended for three days.
“It’s sick and sad. Never seen anything like it,” the dad told me. “But I know the world we live. It’s pretty wicked at times.”
The family reached out to the American Center for Law and Justice for help.
“Once we heard about this situation of the student’s suspension, we took action,” said ACLJ’s Jordan Sekulow. “Immediately after this student’s parents contacted us, we wrote a legal demand letter to this school. We made very clear to the school its obligation under the First Amendment was to respect the right of this child to share his faith, rather than stifle his ability to communicate his beliefs with others. The school is barred by the First Amendment from treating his faith as “harassment.”
“We did not merely give this school a basic lesson in constitutional law,” Sekulow said. “We also made clear that we will be proceeding with further legal action against the school unless it immediately ends this student’s suspension, removes this from his academic record, and apologizes to him and his family immediately.”
This kind of behavior, especially toward vulnerable students, can never be tolerated, the famed attorney added.
“We will continue to hold this school, and any school that engages in similarly blatantly illegitimate behavior, accountable to the Constitution,” he said.
Exactly.
“It certainly appears that the other students set a trap for the Christian kid and he was suspended for three days.”
This was just a private conversation, no? If the complaing kids weren’t harassed or approached to hear the conversation, I don’t see how this suspension can stand.
Matthew 10:
14
Whoever will not receive you or listen to your words—go outside that house or town and shake the dust from your feet.
15
Amen, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.i
Coming Persecutions.
16
j “Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.
17
* But beware of people,k for they will hand you over to courts and scourge you in their synagogues,l
18
and you will be led before governors and kings for my sake as a witness before them and the pagans.
19
When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say. You will be given at that moment what you are to say.m
20
For it will not be you who speak but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
21
* n Brother will hand over brother to death, and the father his child; children will rise up against parents and have them put to death.
22
You will be hated by all because of my name, but whoever endures to the end* will be saved.
23
When they persecute you in one town, flee to another. Amen, I say to you, you will not finish the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.*
24
o No disciple is above his teacher, no slave above his master.
25
It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher, for the slave that he become like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul,* how much more those of his household!
Courage Under Persecution.
26
p “Therefore do not be afraid of them. Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known.* q
27
What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.
28
And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.r
29
Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge.
30
Even all the hairs of your head are counted.
31
So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
32
* Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.
33
But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.s
I hope the ACLJ sues for money for the kid and first amendment training for the entire school staff and the student body.
The government in some areas is actively engaged in the war against Christianity.
This is North Carolina. That’s one of the few places left I would expect a child would be safe in school talking about his faith.
No, and I have no desire to know the pedophilic warlord Mad Mo!
Leftyism is a cancer.....it spreads.
Amen 🙏🏻!
The administration probably figured they could exercise their biases without risk.
Hey jacknhoo, GREAT POST.
The Word of God cuts to the marrow indeed.
(Enjoy your bio too =:^)
Well said.
of course he was.
total violation of his 1st Amendment rights but that doesn’t matter these days
I started going to public school shortly after WWII and the patriotism was everywhere. In class, in the daily school-wide auditorium session each morning before class, everywhere.
Just saying, it can go one way or the other.
Everyone loves to forget. It shouldn’t take a world war to remind us.
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“There is no way a student can violate Title IX. It only applies to employees/administrators.”
You can take it a step further. Suspending or admonishing a child using borderline harassment as the “punishment” is like a cop writing a ticket for speeding in the middle of the desert doing exactly the speed limit. There is no such thing as borderline harassment when applied to disciplinary actions. And the reason is because no law or rule has been broken.
But, further here is the title IX interpretation off their web site and no where is speech identified as an harassment, only sexual.
I see a law suit here and it could stretch into the question of being accredited as a public education institution. They literally applied their opinion into a disciplinary action with nothing unlawful recognized within their posted rules and in violation of the first amendment by not doing so.
Wy69
...because the REAL world is NOT going to be like homeschooling with siblings and mom or dad. One cannot be a light to the world if one seldom leaves the house.
That being said: If we would have had kids I might have gone that route. If we could have moved to the area of my Alma mater, home schooling would not have been necessary.
With a name like "Envision" you can tell its a vapid public school following all the post-modern norms American government education can imagine.
So we have Freedom Of Speech as long as they agree with it. Otherwise they PUNISH you. Dems are EVIL.
Jesus got the same treatment when he was on earth. The school is wrong to deny him talking about his faith & I think they are afraid it might denigrate their authority...ill informed as it may be.
The lesson here is to not inform the parents of in-school suspensions.
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