A middle school student in California was suspended after he was accused of wearing blackface to a football game, but a civil rights group is speaking out in his defense, The New York Post reported.
The eighth grader, only identified as J.A., was seen in a photograph with dark paint on his cheeks and chin on Oct. 13.
A week later, the boy's parents got a call from the principal at Muirland Middle School to tell them he would be suspended for two days and could not attend any more athletic events.
According to a disciplinary notice, J.A. “painted his face black at a football game." The incident was characterized as an “offensive comment, intent to harm.”
But in a letter to the principal, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) called for the disciplinary action against the boy to be reversed.
“As the First Amendment protects J.A.’s non-disruptive expression of team spirit via a style commonly used by athletes and fans — notwithstanding your inaccurate description of it as ‘blackface’ — FIRE calls on the school to remove the infraction from J.A.’s disciplinary record and lift the ban on his attendance at future athletic events,” Aaron Terr, the group’s director of public advocacy, wrote in the letter on Nov. 8.
Terr added that J.A’s “appearance emulated the style of eye black worn by many athletes,” noting that, “such use of eye black began as a way to reduce glare during games, but long ago evolved into ‘miniature billboards for personal messages and war-paint slatherings.”
Terr wrote that J.A.'s paint had nothing to do with blackface and instead "followed a popular warpaint-inspired trend of athletes applying large amounts of eye black under their eyes, which has no racial connotations whatsoever.”
“There is no evidence J.A.’s face paint caused a disruption — let alone a material and substantial one — at the football game or at school afterward,” Terr concluded. “The complete lack of disruption is unsurprising, as the sight of fans in face paint is familiar to and expected by anyone who has ever attended a football game or other sporting event.”
The district reportedly denied Terr's request to overturn the ruling.
