The mother of a North Carolina high school student stated she had “no other choice” but to sue her son’s school board, which suspended him for asking about the term “illegal alien.”
Leah McGhee, the mother of a Central Davidson High School student, said her son’s English teacher assigned various vocabulary words in April, with one of them being “alien.” Her son had asked for clarification on the word, questioning whether it was referencing “space aliens or illegal aliens without green cards.” This prompted the school to suspend McGhee’s son for three days. McGhee has argued that the suspension caused her son to miss several important track meets, with the family choosing to remove their son from the school.
The lawsuit, filed by the Liberty Justice Center, came about a month later.
“We have asked the school to handle this privately for weeks,” McGhee said on Fox News’s Fox & Friends. “I’ve emailed the school board for four weeks. I’ve had no response from the school board. And since … we had no resolution, we had no other choice but to file a lawsuit and take this public.”
McGhee also said that her son has received accusations of racism in the wake of his suspension but that the community they live in has shifted to their side after she spoke at a school board meeting on Monday night. She added that she has received messages of support “from all over the country.”
Dean McGee, an attorney for the Liberty Justice Center, argued that there is “no case for racism” in relation to the word “alien,” calling the suspension of McGhee’s son “outrageous.” He added that because “schools are government,” the government has branded McGhee’s son as a racist while denying him education for three days due to his suspension.
The lawsuit was filed against Davidson County Schools in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina on Tuesday.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
In the wake of McGhee’s son receiving the suspension, Republican state Sen. Steve Jarvis contacted the school district’s superintendent to inform him of the situation. He had also asked school officials to find the best solution for all involved in this dilemma.
The Washington Examiner has contacted Davidson County Schools for comment.
