Daniel Ameduri and his son J.A. had a great time watching a football game between La Jolla and Morse High School. There was lots of testosterone in the air, and J.A had been feeling it before the game.
Out of excitement, he decided to do something many die-hard football fans and dramatic players do. He painted his face black, like a Viking about to go on one of their barbaric raids. It was far from perfect, but that only added to its charm.
One black security guard who saw J.A at the game even walked up to him with a tip on how to do it better. “The spikes need to go higher,” he said. However, not everyone was charmed with J.A wearing his passion on his face in such a manner.
Still, nobody challenged him or his father during the game. They enjoyed it. La Jolla won. But two days later, the principal of his school summoned Ameduri’s son. Even though there were no complaints from anyone, nor was there any altercation, the principal decided to punish him.
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“Then the following Monday, Tuesday, nothing,” Ameduri said. “Wednesday afternoon, the principal called J.A. into the office. And the next morning, my wife and I showed up, and he said, ‘He did blackface,’ and he was suspended for two days and was gonna be banned from sports.”
Ameduri was shocked. In an attempt to end the controversy, he showed the principal a picture of J.A from the game. “He was like, ‘No, that’s blackface,'” Ameduri said.
“Anyone that has ever been to a sports game knows that this is very normal. And these are kids that were playing hide and seek a few days prior at my house… half of the group are minorities, some of them African American.
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It’s just ridiculous that this would be a racial incident,” Ameduri continued. In response to the punishment, Ameduri’s family is suing school officials over the October 13 incident. Karin Sweigart, who is representing the family, shed more light on the lawsuit.
“We’re suing the principal directly, the superintendent, and then the people who made the decision to rubber stamp the principal’s ridiculous decision to suspend J.A.,” Sweigart said.
“There was a recent case just in the last couple of years at the Supreme Court where they talked about the out-of-school speech rights that students have to be able to express themselves. It was very clear that unless you have a substantial disruption on the campus, schools cannot restrict the out-of-school speech rights of students,” she added.
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“Here, the school is just going way beyond the constitutional strictures that they have to be able to regulate student speech.” Sweigart also accused the schools of not following due process. J.A. has confessed he never intended to offend or harm anyone.
“The only people showing absolute racism right now is the school and the school administrators,” his father said. “There wasn’t even a real investigation.”
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