Judge sides with Calif school that punished 1st grader for adding two inclusive words to Black Lives Matter cartoon

A left-wing judge has ruled that a school was justified in punishing a 7-year-old boy for inadvertently pointing out that all lives matter.

After a lesson on Martin Luther King Jr. three years ago at Viejo Elementary School, Chelsea Boyle's white daughter tried to comfort her black friend by drawing a picture that said “Black Lives Matter.”

The girl also included the words “any life” as well as oval representations of various skin colors.

Look at the drawing below:

When her friend took the drawing home, the friend's mother became angry and emailed the school saying she “would not tolerate any more messages [her daughter] at school because of her skin color” and that she “trusts[ed] school would address the issue,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

“The director was confronted [Boyle’s daughter] and told her that the drawing was “inappropriate” and “racist” and that she could no longer draw at school and that she had to apologize to her friend,” the Chronicle pointed out. “When she returned to class, the his teachers told him he couldn't play recess for two weeks.”

Boyle, meanwhile, didn't even learn about the incident until 2022, at which point she immediately demanded that her daughter receive an apology from the school. However, the school brushed her aside and left her with no other option but to file a lawsuit.

“His silence is unacceptable,” said Boyle's attorney, Alexander Haberbush Fox News in 2022, arguing that what the school did was “a flagrant violation of the First Amendment rights of a student placed in its charge.”

“As a child with ADHD, art is Boyle's daughter's main emotional outlet,” he continued. “The school has deprived her of this, and for what? To have the audacity to draw kids of all races getting along with the words 'black lives matter', 'any life' matters.'

He added that his company “will do everything in its power to make sure that Ms. Boyle's voice and her daughter's voice are heard and that the school recognizes her wrongdoing.”

Unfortunately for the Boyle family, U.S. District Court Judge David Carter, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, disagreed with their view of the First Amendment.

NEW: Meet Leftist California District Court Judge David Carter…

Judge Carter ruled in favor of Viejo Elementary School District teachers severely punishing a 7-year-old girl for adding “any life” under a Black Lives Matter cartoon claiming the child was too young for First Amendment… pic.twitter.com/m8wYm7rDr9

— Right Angle News Network (@Rightanglenews) July 18, 2024

“Certainly, [Boyle’s daughter’s] the intentions were innocent”, he admitted in his sentence. “[She] testified that he gave her the drawing [her friend] to make her feel comfortable after her class learned about Martin Luther King Jr. “

However, he continued, the drawing was not protected by the First Amendment.

“Students have the right to be free from words that denigrate their race while in school,” he wrote, suggesting that the inclusion of “any life” was somehow derogatory to black people.

He also referenced Boyle's daughter's age.

“An elementary school … is not a marketplace of ideas,” he wrote. “Thus, the downsides of regulating speech are not as significant as in high schools, where students are approaching voting age and controversial speech could lead to favorable conversations.”

And finally he approved of the punishment, saying: “A father could guess [the principal’s] conclusion, but his decision to discipline [Boyle’s daughter] it belongs to him, not the federal courts.”

The good news is that the battle is not over yet. Now it's headed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals thanks to Caleb Trotter, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation who filed a challenge this week.

“The whole situation was crazy,” he told the Chronicle. “As absurd as this case is, if this decision is allowed to stand … it sets a precedent. If this view is allowed to survive and spread, the free speech rights of countless elementary school students across the country could be in danger. That was what really worried me.”

Trotter, for his part, believes the judge made his decision based on a fallacious and bullish New York Times propaganda piece that claims the phrase “all lives matter” and its derivatives are offensive.

Trotter added that if the Ninth Circuit also sides with them, he could take the case all the way to the Supreme Court.

Senior Staff Writer
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V. Saxena is a writer for BizPac Review with a decade of experience as a professional writer and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University.

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