One Georgia school district says it’s perfectly OK for its high school softball team to kneel during the National Anthem at a game, but a middle schooler wearing a t-shirt criticizing the media off school property was nixed.
In October, after the softball Anthem protest, DeKalb Schools put out a statement that said, “If students should elect to express their free speech rights, we want to create and provide a safe space to do so. The goal is not to interfere with the students’ constitutional right to freedom of speech.”
Well, Peachtree Charter Middle School didn’t provide a safe space for Jaxon Jester to exercise his constitutional right to free speech and they certainly failed in their “goal” not to interfere with his expression.
You see, young Jaxon’s school was going on an annual field trip to CNN headquarters in Atlanta and he wanted to send a message about his displeasure with the liberal network. So he went on Amazon and ordered a t-shirt calling CNN the “Fake News Network” – so awesome! But when Jaxon wore it to school on the day of the field trip, he was forced to take it off!
According to Jaxon’s father, Stan, the shirt was entirely the boy’s doing and he was simply supporting his wishes.
As his father explained it, “This year when the CNN tour was announced, my 7th grade son Jaxon asked me if he could purchase an FNN-Fake News Network shirt to wear for his field trip. As an advocate for the First Amendment, I agreed to his request.”
Stan went on, “His mother cautioned him that he might cause a controversy and needed to be prepared for that. He was fully aware of the implications of his decision and made the affirmative choice to wear his shirt.”
Jaxon’s father called out the school’s “hypocrisy” in supporting the softball team’s right to protest, but not his son’s.
Apparently the school has apologized to the Jesters, but they really want an apology for their son. The parents are active politically, Stan is a school board member and his wife is a county commissioner, which a writer for the liberal Atlanta Journal-Constitution was not happy with.
Here’s a picture of Jaxon proudly wearing his shirt on the day of the school field trip.
This kid should get a “Special Invite” to the White House! His school NIXED his T-Shirt on a field trip to CNN! He should receive a “Medal” for Bravery! Ha! FNN: Fake News Network! “A rising STAR!” pic.twitter.com/U40hJUOdeX
— Larry Josephs (@lljosephs) November 17, 2017
President Trump has been outspoken in calling CNN “fake news” ever since they published the infamously wrong dossier on him in early January. CNN further discredited itself by publishing a bogus Russia report that they had to retract and fire people over this summer. They continued to report on a Trump-Russia connection that a CNN producer admitted was “mostly bull-.” They even posted a fake Abraham Lincoln quote in an attempt to attack Trump.
CNN truly is the ‘Fake News Network’ and people across the country have delighted in trolling them for it. Along with sporting t-shirts like Jaxon, people have put “Fake News” stickers on CNN luggage and, earlier this month, a man interrupted Anderson Cooper’s show on CNN to yell, “CNN is fake news!”
It would have been hilarious if Jaxon had gotten to go inside CNN and get a picture with his t-shirt. Well, there’s always next year’s field trip!
What do you think – is CNN the ‘Fake News Network’? And would you allow your child to wear a t-shirt saying that to school? Tell us in the comments below!
