San Diego Unified School District Officials Accuse Boy of Racism for Wearing Eyeblack to Football Game

The parents of a San Diego eighth grader are suing the school officials who, in yet another instance of liberals concocting racism where none exists, deemed the boy a racist for wearing eyeblack to a football game.

The boy, who was trying to emulate professional football players who use face paint, was accused of wearing “blackface” by the school principal who suspended him in a decision upheld by the school superintendent.

Muirlands Middle School principal Jeff Luna and San Diego Unified School District Superintendent Lamont Jackson are defendants in the lawsuit which was filed early this year by conservative lawyer Harmeet Dhillon’s Center for American Liberty in San Diego federal court.

“School officials shouldn’t sacrifice their students’ futures on the altar of cancel culture,” Dhillon said in a statement.“No reasonable person would believe that a middle school kid wearing athletic eye black intended to intimidate anyone or send a racist message. These baseless allegations do nothing but tarnish an innocent student’s reputation and jeopardize his educational future.”

The legal wrangling continued last month, with a flurry of motions and responses filed by both sides as the school district doubled down on its convention that it suspended the boy for being a racist.

The school district now contends, without offering any hard evidence, that the boy was also suspended for making racist remarks at the game. But his lawyers say this concocted charge was not even in the original suspension notice and is an attempt to “rewrite history.”

The boy is identified only as J.A. in court papers.

Karin Sweigart, one of his lawyers, told the California Globe that, “To see adults malign a child as racist based on  nothing more than rumors and innuendo is appalling to me. The school’s records state J.A. was suspended for hate violence, but when forced to explain themselves, they had zero firsthand evidence supporting their outrageous allegations.”

“But worse,“ she added, “because they had zero evidence supporting their decision, they now are making up new inflammatory and defamatory accusations after the fact to try to justify their irrational claims.”

Sweigart also said  the school was violating the boy’s First Amendment rights because wearing the eye paint was protected expression. “J.A. engaged in protected speech when he wore eyeblack to show fan spirit along with nearly 100 other fans at a football game. Under the First Amendment, the school could only punish J.A. for that speech under very limited circumstances, none of which are present here.”

The incident in question is the football game that J.A., a student at Muirlands Middle School in La Jolla, attended at La Jolla High School on Saturday October 13th of last year.

The lawsuit says that “J.A. spent most of the Game with friends who happen to be racial minorities, including a friend who is Hispanic and another who is Black.”

He did not have eyeblack when he arrived but noticed that half the people in the stands did, including other Muirlands Middle School students, according to the lawsuit.

“At around 8:30 p.m., one of J.A.’s friends, who happens to be Hispanic, painted Warrior eye black on J.A.’s face. When his friend had finished, J.A. asked a Black security guard at the Game how the [eye black] looked. The security guard said it looked good and complimented J.A. on his design,” the lawsuit says.

It contends JA and his friend were just having a good time and not trying to mock anyone. “J.A.’s intent in having his friend paint Warrior eye black on his face was to show spirit for the football team along with the many other fans in attendance. He was not familiar with the concept of “blackface”  at the time he put on the Warrior eye black. He had no intent to mimic or mock anyone when he donned the Warrior eye black, nor did he engage in any behavior that could be characterized as mimicking or mocking Black people while wearing it.”

But two days after he returned to school J.A. was pulled from class at the end of the day and summoned to the principal’s office. “Principal Jeff Luna told J.A. he had received a complaint that somebody matching his description was wearing blackface at the game.  J.A. told Luna  he was just wearing eye black or Warrior Paint and drew him an illustration.”

The next day his parents brought to their meeting with Luna a picture of J.A. wearing what was clearly eyeblack not blackface. But Lunda was determined to brand J.A. as a racist.

“Throughout the meeting, Principal Luna made clear to J.A.’s parents that he had no interest in either providing J.A.’s parents with any evidence that supported his decision or hearing any evidence from J.A.’s parents that might challenge his predetermined outcome,” the lawsuit says.

Luna suspended J.A. for two days and banned him from school athletic events for the rest of the year. The suspension report accused him of a hate crime.

“The Suspension Report stated J.A. was being suspended for a “Hate Incident,”  under the  California Education Code § 48900.3 which authorizes suspensions if it is determined that a pupil “has caused, attempted to cause, or participated in an act of, hate violence,” the lawsuit says.”These portions of the penal code are commonly referred to as Hate Crime statutes.”

The charge of a hate crime was concocted by the whims of the principal, the lawsuit makes clear. “Though the Suspension Report accuses J.A. of intentionally causing, attempting to cause, or participating in a threat of violence to deprive a victim of protected rights, Principal Luna never provided any evidence to suggest that J.A. perpetrated a threat or invaded the constitutional or statutory interests of another. Principal Luna never suggested or provided evidence that J.A. targeted anyone at all, let alone targeted someone because of a protected characteristic. And Principal Luna never provided any evidence that J.A.’s intent in wearing Warrior eye black was to mimic or mock Black people.”

In addition to the lawsuit the Center for American Liberty also filed a motion for a preliminary injunction that would prohibit the school district from continuing to punish J.A. for protected speech. Besides being barred from attending athletic games in the school district for the rest of the year his school record now reflects that he was suspended for committing an act of “hate violence.”

“J.A. exercised his First Amendment right of free expression when he donned Warrior eye black to cheer at a high school football game,” the motion reads. “Luna and the [other] defendants violated those rights when they punished J.A. for his off-campus speech which did not cause a substantial disruption at the school and did not threaten to harm the rights of anyone.”

It says the principal, Jeff Luna, railroaded J.A. in a preening act of moral superiority that is commonly referred to as virtue-signaling. “Luna had an impermissible motive in punishing J.A. for his innocent activity: to make himself look like he was taking a tough stance on racism to advance his own reputation and career prospects.  He accused and punished an innocent child for causing, attempting to cause, or participating in an act of hate violence—defined as intending by threats of violence to invade interests protected by constitutional or statutory rights—with zero evidence to support the allegation. The record amply reflects that there was no rational basis for Luna’s claims.”

On February 26, lawyers for Luna and the San Diego Unified School District filed a brief opposing the motion for a preliminary injunction.

It turns out that another boy they identify as “RR” was also suspended for wearing the eyeblack. But he has not taken any legal action.

“Plaintiff JA and his classmate, RR, were both suspended from school for two days after the principal of their school determined, after an investigation and giving the students an opportunity to be heard, that JA and RR had put black paint on their faces and uttered racially charged, offensive comments in a specific, important context, at a school-sponsored activity during which school officials had in loco parentis authority and responsibility over them,” the motion contends.

The lawyers say Luna received a report from a cheerleading coach for one of the high school teams playing the game that students with blackface were saying “niga this and niga that” and that they were saying they were free to say that because their faces were painted black.

The motion says “Luna determined that JA and RR had both participated in an incident where racially derogatory statements were made, more likely than not by both of them, near and within earshot of  students, staff, and fans, and that the comments and the black paint on their faces was intended to mock the African American students, staff, and fans.”

Moreover, “Luna had determined, based on all of the information including JA’s responses, that the black on JA’s face was not there for the [non-racial]reasons his parents subsequently asserted, and that JA not only had the black on his face for other reasons but made racially insensitive and/or racially charged statements.”

But how exactly did Luna make these determinations?

In their March 11 reply brief  lawyers for J.A. says this allegation was concocted after the suspension without any evidence. “Defendants provide no statements from parents, students, the unnamed cheer coach, or anyone else about alleged racial slurs; they offer no cell phone videos or recordings of anyone using racial slurs; and have no reports to police or security guards at the game claiming students used racial slurs. They never interviewed the rest of the students with JA or any other fans. And, since the record does not include any firsthand evidence that anyone at the game used racial slurs, it certainly does not include evidence that JA specifically did.”

Moreover, “No contemporaneous records suggest JA was suspended for using racial slurs.”

“Defendants’ new suggestion that they suspended JA for racial slurs together with blackface is contradicted by Defendants’ records, Defendants’ declarations, and by the declarations of JA, his parents, and his friends. Defendants offer no credible evidence either that they suspended JA for racial slurs or that JA used racial slurs.”

The lawyers for J.A. conclude their motion by saying the school district and principal are persecuting him to show they are virtuous anti-racists.

“Defendants’ evidence in Opposition shows, in spades, that they punished and maligned a child as a racist guilty of hate violence based

solely on conjecture and innuendo. In short, they prove JA’s point that they are more concerned with taking a victory lap for being tough on racism [than] protecting innocent children. This is virtue signaling and has no place in this Court.”

Now the judge assigned to the case must rule on the competing motions.

It is anybody’s guess how long that will take. Sometimes, judges rule within weeks or days after all the papers are filed. Other times it takes months. Or in some cases years.

Lawyer Karin Sweigart told the Globe she is optimistic about a favorable ruling. “The violations of J.A.’s rights here are clear, and I think the Court will do the right thing by granting J.A. a preliminary injunction,” she emailed.

Mark Bresee, the lawyer for the school district, did not reply to a request for comment.