Law professor blasts student's MAGA hat as 'undeniable symbol of white supremacy'

Jeffrey Omari — a visiting assistant professor at the Gonzaga University School of Law — said his "blood boiled" over a student wearing a Make America Great Again hat during one of his classes.

In his op-ed for the ABA Journal — Seeing Red: A professor coexists with 'MAGA' in the classroom — Omari wrote that initially he was "unsure whether the student was directing a hateful message toward me or if he merely lacked decorum and was oblivious to how his hat might be interpreted by his black law professor."

Omari determined that the student's MAGA hat — the iconic symbol of President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign — was a hateful message toward him.

"As the student sat there directly in front of me, his shiny red MAGA hat was like a siren spewing derogatory racial obscenities at me for the duration of the one hour and fifteen-minute class," he wrote.

As we've repeatedly seen, MAGA hats are more or less lightning rods to scads of leftists. As TheBlaze has reported, anti-Trump folks have flipped out at MAGA-hat wearers, took off or knocked the caps from their heads, or actually stole them as video recorded the incidents. On the Fourth of July, multiple females allegedly pushed and punched a 6'1", 230-pound former college linebacker in a restaurant for wearing one.

As you would expect, the student's MAGA hat didn't spark any incidents in the law school class. But Omari did note that "in an effort to assuage the perceived tension, I jokingly told the student, 'I like your hat,' when he raised his hand to participate in class discussion. Without missing a beat, the student mockingly grinned from ear to ear and said, 'Thank you.'"

He also said that "an informal survey of my colleagues revealed that no other law faculty had experienced any students wearing such propaganda in their classes, which furthered my contention that this student was indeed trying to intimidate and/or racially antagonize me."

'Undeniable symbol of white supremacy'

Omari added that he "was one of an exceedingly small number of students, faculty and staff of color in the law school. From my (progressive) perspective as a black man living in the increasingly polarized political climate that is America, MAGA is an undeniable symbol of white supremacy and hatred toward certain nonwhite groups."

More from his op-ed:

For its supporters, MAGA indexes an effort to return to a time in American history when this country was "great" for some—particularly, propertied white men—but brutally exclusionary for others, most notably women and people of color. Recent statements by MAGA-supporting politicians such as Roy Moore have given this perspective added credence. [..]

In the meantime, faculty of color remain committed to professionalism, which also means peaceably coexisting with MAGA in the classroom. To be certain, however, in academic settings "making America great again" suggests a return to the days when women and people of color were denied access to these very institutions.

(H/T: The College Fix)