California judge sides with elementary school against 7-year-old girl who was punished harshly over BLM message

A judge sided against the family of a 7-year-old who was severely punished for scrawling "any life" under a Black Lives Matter message on a card she gave to a friend who happened to black.

The girl, known in court documents only as "B.B.," gave a picture to her friend after they saw a documentary about the life of Martin Luther King Jr. She also drew round shapes in different colors that were supposed to represent their "racially-mixed" group of friends, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

'An elementary school ... is not a marketplace of ideas.'

Her friend, known as "M.C." in court documents, took the image home, where it was seen by her parents. They were offended by the picture and called the school to demand administrators take action.

The school punished the girl for what administrators saw as racially insensitive speech by making the girl apologize to her friends and teachers on the school playground. They also banned her from drawing pictures for two weeks and from going to recess.

The mother of the girl only found out about the incident a year later.

"I was immediately angry, I didn't know what had happened, I knew it was wrong fundamentally," said Chelsea Boyle, the mother of B.B. in an interview with Fox News.

"My daughter's rights were taken away, and I just started reaching out to find out what compelled speech was. I didn't know what it was until I spoke to attorneys," she added.

Boyle then sued the Capistrano Unified School District.

Central District Court Judge David Carter sided against the girl's family and said that she didn't have First Amendment rights at an elementary school.

"Students have the right to be free from speech that denigrates their race while at school," wrote Carter.

“An elementary school ... is not a marketplace of ideas,” he continued. “Thus, the downsides of regulating speech there is not as significant as it is in high schools, where students are approaching voting age and controversial speech could spark conducive conversation.”

The case will now go to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!