Conservative Columnist Says School Owes White 'African-American' Student an Apology
by Jim Brown and Jenni Parker
January 30, 2004
(AgapePress) - A white high school student and native of South Africa has been excluded from consideration for a Nebraska school's "Distinguished African-American Student Award" because he is not black. Moreover, he has been suspended for actions the school alleges were "offensive" to black students.Trevor Richards, a junior at Omaha's Westside High School who was born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa, was recently suspended along with two friends for distributing posters urging support for Richards as next year's "Distinguished African-American Student."
That award has for eight years been given on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day to a senior selected by teachers. On that day this year, the three boys decided to initiate their campaign by plastering the school with 150 flyers bearing Trevor's smiling picture and a message soliciting votes for him for the award.
The school suspended Trevor and his friends for their unauthorized actions. And one day after the three boys' suspension, another student who had begun gathering signatures for a petition protesting the boys' punishment was also booted from classes.
One of the boys described the intent behind the posters as an attempt at satire on the term "African-American." While the definition of the term denotes an American of African descent, popular usage in the United States generally connotes black African descent. In any event, some conservatives have come to view the Westside incident as a test case for the abolition of race-based terminology as well as race-based awards.
But while Westside's principal John Crook insists the posters Richards and his friends handed out were racially offensive, conservative columnist David Huntwork says school officials reacted too harshly to something that was "not a very malicious act whatsoever."
Huntwork asserts the posters contained no hateful images and were really designed and distributed strictly to make a point. "It was meant to just point out the ridiculousness of race-based awards and how divisive these things are," he says, "and frankly it was very clever."
The columnist feels Westside owes Richards and his friends an apology. He says the school officials' reaction to the incident "shows how entrenched this whole multiculturalism-diversity-political correctness ideology and philosophy [is and how it] has taken over in the schools."
Huntwork is calling on the Nebraska high school to rescind its punishment. "I think it's amazing," he adds, "that there have been absolutely no apologies to these students, certainly no clearing of their academic records for this, and no recognition that [the school officials] overreacted."
Trevor Richards' mother Karen recently told American Family Radio News that while her family is considering legal action against the school, she cannot wait for the controversy to die down.
