Suspended for Wearing a Taxation is Theft Hat, This Student’s Free Speech Was Trampled

The Free Thought Project reported on a high school freshman in Florida getting suspended for five days earlier this month for wearing a hat that read “Taxation is theft” and also handing out flyers for a presidential candidate who is an advocate for “ending the drug war.”

The student in question was not named for the sake of privacy. In the Free Thought Project article, the student was named “E” and was approached by school staff for wearing this hat. The Florida student claims that he was wearing “his hat at a time and place in which students are allowed to wear hats.” However, he believes that “due to the words on the hat”, he was singled out.

“The administration claimed that I can’t wear hats outside, when it actually says in the Florida Constitution that students can in fact wear hats or other headgear outside,” E informed The Free Thought Project.

But this was only the tip of the iceberg.

When the Florida student started to hand out flyers for 2020 presidential candidate Dan Behrman — a champion of ending the war drug and establishing tax freedom — things got even more hectic.

E would find himself facing school staff who tried detaining him for handing out the flyers. “I tried to leave the cafeteria when I was told I wasn’t being detained, and I only stayed because I was followed, harassed, and coerced into doing so,” he said.

A deputy jumped into the mix and informed school administrators that E was filming them.

“They got the deputy involved the first time because I started recording,” E stated. “The deputy was nearby when they confronted me for handing out the flyers. And then the deputy walked up to us and was like ‘I’d like to let you know that he might be recording you without your knowledge.’”

“I was suspended out of school for five days for the flyers and refusing to turn them in and being skeptical of their claims of what the rules are,” E claimed. “They lied to me about the hat rule, so I was thinking that they might be lying again. They didn’t allow the opportunity for me to look up the rule because they knew that they could have possibly been wrong.”

E provided The Free Thought Project a copy of his suspension letter which highlighted that he was suspended for “Disobedience/Insubordination.” He was not allowed to return to school until Monday, October 14, 2019.

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The Free Thought Project previously contacted the school district to get more information about the nature of E’s suspension but they never received a response.

This incident shows how controlling public schools can be. As factories for social conformity, public schools aim to indoctrinate millions of kids nationwide. Given how politically correct culture, government, and public administration have become, it’s no surprise why a public school would shut down this kind of pro-freedom expression.

Conservatives and other groups that actually believe in freedom would be wise to not send their children to institutions that do everything they can to mold them into obedient cogs in the wheel.