On Friday, my son was suspended indefinitely from school and criminally charged with "disorderly conduct" for "glorifying violence" by wearing a t-shirt with the iconic "bloody Trump" photo with the words "Bullet Proof" written above it. I am almost certain this was pretext for a much more serious violation of my son's civil rights! Here is the context:When he met
@ScottPresler
2 months ago at a Trump rally here in PA, my 15y.o. son was absolutely star struck! I didn't even know he knew who Scott was! Due to his deep admiration of Scott and his work, that meeting inspired him to find a way to help contribute to Scott's work. A few weeks ago, he suddenly had an amazing idea while sitting at lunch with friends and talking about the upcoming election. He noticed that an overwhelming number of the almost 3,0000 or so students in his high school were enthusiastically rooting for Trump. He further realized that close to 20% of his high school peers were at least 18 years old, yet unlikely to be registered to vote. That evening, he asked me to walk him through the online registration process and bookmarked the
http://pavoterservices.pa.gov website on his cell phone. He started encouraging every junior and senior he came in contact with during gym, lunch, study hall, ect. to register and immediately guided them through the quick and easy online registration process on their cell phones whenever they would agree, including the section requesting mail in ballots automatically be sent to increase the likelihood that the students would actually follow through and vote. Slowly, word spread amongst the students and my son became known as the "voting sign up guy". Eventually, and especially this past week, more and more students started approaching my son and they started asking him to "sign them up"! This caught the attention of some of the school staff and some of the teachers started questioning my son about what he was "up to". More than one teacher told him that "school isnt the place for that". This past Wed., one of the vice principals had pulled my son aside during lunch sternly issued a directive for my son to "do this kind of stuff on his own time outside of school". My son, respectfully but confidently, asserted his right to "do his civic duty", especially amongst the public on public property and politely declined to limit his interactions to outside of the school. By Thursday afternoon, my son had encouraged and assisted almost 100 new registered voters amongst his high school peers here in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania....famous for consistently corrupt elections! By 9:000 AM on Fri. morning, I was called to the school to pick up my son and take him home. He was trespassed from the property of his own high school due to "immediate safety concerns" and "criminal disorderly conduct", as he supposedly made staff and students feel unsafe considering his recent "behavior" and the "depiction of glorified political and gun violence" on his shirt. I was told that he would not he permitted to return until he underwent an extensive psychological evaluation (that I am responsible for obtaining and paying for) and participated in a "comprehensive risk assessment" performed by the school's "safety committee". I wasn't going to publicly share this because it is regarding my minor son, but after thinking about it over the weekend, I feel the public needs to know, as we fund that school. More importantly, I could really use some support and guidance from others about what I can and should do going forward to defend and protect my child from this outrageous abuse of his civil rights, including his right to a public education, over political agenda! I did speak with a few attorneys on Fri. afternoon, but I would need at least $5,000 - $10,000 just as a retainer for legal representation for him. It's just not feasible. The comprehensive psychological evaluation is already going to cost me upwards of $1,000! What else can I do?
