AURORA | A parent of an Eaglecrest High School student filed a complaint with county sheriff deputies over his son’s alleged discrimination at the hands of other students and school staff for wearing a Donald Trump campaign hat and expressing conservative political beliefs.
Mark Moorehead said his son Tanner, an Eaglecrest sophomore, is a strong conservative voice in the school and had his hat ripped in shreds during an altercation with another student in the school cafeteria last month.
Cherry Creek schools spokeswoman Abbe Smith said that the district “absolutely” respects the First Amendment rights of students, but said any hats are not allowed in district schools.
Moorehead said a teacher asked Tanner to remove the hat, and he complied. Schoolchildren are entitled under the U.S. constitution to express political beliefs in school, he said.
Moorehead filed a complaint with the Arapahoe County Sheriffs office shortly after the incident, and said he is frustrated with the school administration’s response. An investigation into the incident is pending but no charges have been filed, said Arapahoe County Sheriffs Investigator Keith Thomas.
Mark said Tanner felt discriminated against after the teacher asked him to remove the hat — emblazoned with “TRUMP 2020” – and tested the rule by wearing a non-political hat. He said Tanner wasn’t asked to remove that hat.
That was the first serious instance of discrimination, said Mark, but Tanner had become used to insults hurled by other kids. The family hails from Dallas, Texas suburbs, and Mark said Tanner often exhorts others with his conservative values.
Tanner is also frequently called a “redneck,” according to his father, but insults like that don’t bother either of them.
The next day, Mark said Tanner was in the school cafeteria when a female student walked over to him and snatched the hat from him. She ran to a trash can and tried to throw the hat in, but Tanner stopped her, and the two grappled over the hat — which tore into shreds, he said.
The school resource officer and an administrator declined to press charges against the female student for damaging the property, Mark said, so he filed his own complaint.
“I’m trying to get the school to realize how important this is,” he said. “They just don’t care.”
Smith said school staff handled the incident appropriately and followed the proper procedures.
“After the student reported the incident with the hat to a security guard and filed a report in the dean’s office, the school responded appropriately, contacted both students’ parents and referred the matter to law enforcement for investigation,” Smith said. She referred additional questions to law enforcement.
Tanner also told his father that he had a disagreement with a science teacher in a conversation about climate change. Mark said his son did not take exception to the science of climate change, which is widely agreed upon across scientific disciplines, but said the teacher made a political argument for the Green New Deal, a massive public works program touted by divisive Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He took issue to that.
District officials did not comment on issues about the Green New Deal in curriculum.