District that suspended student for using term 'illegal alien' won't provide records to parent organization

• A North Carolina public school district did not release all the information requested about a high-profile suspension of a student for using the term “illegal alien.”
• Davidson County Schools suspended Christian McGhee in April for using the term when he asked for clarification on a vocabulary assignment.
• The school district also appeared to direct school staff to withhold information about students' gender identities from parents in a training presentation made in 2021.

A North Carolina school district that suspended a student for using the term “illegal alien” failed to provide all public records related to the incident requested by a parental rights organization, the group said in the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Christian McGhee, a 16-year-old student at Central Davidson High School, received a three-day suspension in April for using the term “illegal aliens” in class while asking a teacher for clarification on a vocabulary assignment , and made his parents dossier a lawsuit v. Davidson County Board of Education. Parents Defending Education (PDE) filed a records request regarding the suspension however received only four emails totaling eight pages were provided to the DCNF.

“These requested emails may contain confidential student/educational records under FERPA that would not be subject to a public records request and/or to the extent such emails may be provided pursuant to your request, they may have to be very worded or not provided at all,” a district representative told the parental rights group, referring to the Law of Privacy and Educational Rights of the Family.

The Davidson County Board of Education and Davidson County Schools Superintendent Gregg Slate did not respond to multiple requests for comment from DCNF.

A PDE spokesperson told the DCNF that McGhee's parents were not involved in the records request, nor were they in contact with the parental rights group. A spokesman for the Liberty Justice Center, which represents the parents, declined to comment on PDE's records request.

McGhee eventually withdrew from Central Davidson High School and moved into a home-schooling program after receiving threats over the suspension, according to court documents.

BREAKING We filed a lawsuit against a North Carolina school board on behalf of Christian McGhee, a 16-year-old student whose question about the word “foreigners” in class led to a harsh suspension and false accusations of racism from his own school

We are proud to be next to… pic.twitter.com/GvCB5H0wlm

— Liberty Justice Center (@LJCenter) May 7, 2024

Christian McGhee had returned to his class after using the bathroom and arrived to find the class talking about aliens, leading him to question whether the class was talking about space aliens or aliens. legal counsel, Dean McGee, a Liberty Justice Center attorney who represented McGhee and her parents. , he told the DCNF.

“A Latino kid in class turned around and said, 'Hey, I'm going to kick you,'” McGee said. “It was said as a joke, and the class went on as normal until later, a girl from the class brought up the Latino student's comment about kicking Christian's ass, and that's when the teacher called the assistant principal.”

Although both boys told the assistant principal that the comments were no big deal, the assistant principal considered Christian's use of the term “illegal alien” a racial slur and issued the suspension, McGee told the DCNF. McGee referred the DCNF to the Liberty Justice Center's complaint against the Davidson County Board of Education when asked for more details about the assistant principal's conduct.

The term “alien” is defined at 8 USC 1101 as “any person who is not a citizen or national of the United States.” The term “illegal aliens” is used in various parts of the United States Code, including 8 USC 1182, 8 USC 1252ci 8 USC 1366.

“The parents are seeking to clear their record and essentially vindicate their constitutional rights to both free speech and due process,” McGee told the DCNF when asked what McGhee's parents wanted from the litigation. “And their parents are also seeking damages.”

McGee said the parents weren't seeking a specific dollar amount, but would leave it to trial if the school district didn't settle the case.

Student discipline wasn't the only area where Davidson County Schools appeared to be withholding information. In training documents obtained through a PDE public records request, the school system appears to instruct counselors in techniques to withhold information about a student's gender identity.

“Don't write down or email anything you wouldn't want parents to see or know about,” presentation PDE provided to the DCNF said.

“It's clear through these incidents that Davidson administrators feel emboldened to push a political agenda on students,” PDE researcher Alex Nester told the DCNF. “Whether it's punishing student speech or encouraging staff to exclude parents from sensitive information about their children, it's clear that Davidson administrators are more interested in virtue signaling their political correctness than doing the right thing by the families and students they serve. It's shameful.”

PDE reported ten previous incidents in North Carolina, including two school districts that have policies to hide a student's gender identity from parents.

parents sued school districts on efforts to socially transition children without parents' knowledge in Florida and Wisconsin. A 12-year-old girl tried to kill herself in Florida as administrators made a social transition without informing her parents, Fox News. reported.

“The district is literally letting ideology dictate when and how they follow federal law; they're doing it to avoid transparency with parents and the general public,” PDE Director of Outreach Erika Sanzi told the DCNF . “To make matters worse, they are actively telling teachers how to circumvent federal law so they can withhold vital information from parents about their own children. Totally indefensible in every way.”

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