A high-school teacher may have evacuated his entire class because one student was wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat, according to a video that was posted on YouTube.
The video, which was originally posted in an article on The Daily Caller, features audio of what is allegedly the teacher and the student arguing, reportedly recorded by one of the students in the classroom.
“You’re putting me in a position where I’m either going to gather everybody up and go to another classroom and you can remain here like an a******, or you can take your hat off, or you can go talk to an AP about it,” a voice, reportedly the teacher, can be heard saying. “Now, what do you want to do?”
“I can’t sit here and learn?” another voice, reportedly belonging to the student who was wearing the hat, asks.
“Not with that hat on,” the teacher allegedly responds.
The student allegedly pushed back, saying: “Don’t we have a freedom to expression and a freedom to education?” to which the teacher allegedly replies, “I don’t care,” and tells the student to choose.
The student allegedly replied that he wanted to “sit here and learn,” which prompted the teacher to allegedly respond that the class was “going to go elsewhere then” before students can be seen gathering their backpacks and reportedly beginning to leave the classroom.
COMMENTS
Now, to be fair, at one point in the video, the voice reportedly belonging to the teacher makes an allusion to the fact that there are rules against hats — which makes it possible that the real problem was with the fact that the student was wearing a hat in general, not with the fact that the student was wearing a MAGA hat in particular. At another point in the video, however, a voice reportedly belonging to another student insinuates that the MAGA hat is “racist,” which makes it seem as though the problem with the hat was that it was a hat in support of Donald Trump.
In any case, evacuating an entire class over a hat is an absolutely ridiculous and absurd response. Students should be able to wear hats in school — yes, even if those hats say “Make America Great Again.” After all, I think it’s absolutely absurd to think that something as simple as a hat representing a political figure with whom you happen to disagree constitutes something that would create a hostile learning environment. Personally, I didn’t vote for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, but I’ve routinely seen people around me wearing clothing and hats that express their support for each of these candidates. How did that make me feel? Well — it . . . didn’t. It didn’t make me feel anything at all, because I am perfectly aware that other people have different political views than I do. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say that being aware of this — and accepting this — is something that’s going to be absolutely necessary for you to do to be able to live a healthy, well-adjusted life.
