As part of a 17-year-old's campaign for student body president at San Ramon Valley High School in Danville, California, he put together a joke video depicting Islamic terrorists with guns that said he'd protect his fellow students from ISIS if they voted for him.
And the kid won.
But when the school found out about the clip — posted to the student's Twitter account in February — officials tried to strip the student of his election victory, the East Bay Times reported. It seems students who aspire to office sign a contract promising to not campaign using inappropriate messages based on race or bullying, KNTV-TV said.
That, of course, didn't go over well with the boy and his parents, who challenged the matter in court on free-speech grounds, the Times reported. In the end, the district backed off and let the kid keep his student body presidency, the paper said.
But the parent of the current student body president is appalled at the outcome, saying the district "caved in to legal bullying" and that the boy's video was "racially offensive."
Karen Pearce let it be known on her Facebook page that she saw the video and was "so outraged." She asked district officials to "think about the precedent you just set. You pretty much tied the hands of your principals, teachers and safety staff. Get caught drinking — just sue. Don't like your grade — sue. Apparently things like right and wrong don't matter here anymore."
The Times described the content of the video in question:
According to court documents, there is extensive imagery of students using fake firearms — and the video briefly shows what appears to be a real firearm — ostensibly to assault, rob and kill each other. The video also suggests a student engaged in a sexual act when armed “terrorists” abduct him from his bedroom, according to a court document.In the video, the “abductors” shove used tissues into the boy’s face while another begins slapping his naked stomach, according to a court document. Another scene portrays the “terrorists” torturing him.
“The video makes repeated racist and insensitive references to Middle Eastern people, stereotyping them based on their dress, accents and language, names, manner of praying and religious dietary restrictions,” the document stated, the Times reported.
But the boy countered in his petition that the clip was meant to be a parody of action movies and contained no obscene, libelous or slanderous conduct, the paper added.
Spojmie Nasiri, president of the Council on American Islamic Relations in the Bay Area, told the Times that the video adds to Islamophobia.
“To allow these kind of incidents to just play out so innocently cannot be tolerated,” she told the paper. “If nothing more, the school district should take precautions to educate the student population how Muslims are a part of the fabric of this country.”
(H/T: EAGNews)
