That crude, ambiguous drawing above got a first grader—we’re talking six-years-old here—suspended. That’s almost all you have to know for your head to explode if it is properly wired.
The Ethics Villains and Dunces are so thick in this fiasco you could use it to lay bricks. I’m almost embarrassed to tell the story, which I first saw at Reason…
In March of 2021, a first grader referred to as “B.B.” ” drew a picture we are told was intended to show people of different races, representing “three classmates and herself holding hands.” (I’d save the money the family was planning on spending on art school for B.B., if that was their intent.) Above the drawing, B.B. wrote “Black Lives Mater” (Latin!) with the words “any life” stuck in-between the slogan and the jelly beans, or whatever they were. B.B. then gave the drawing to a black classmate, as what B.B. testified was intended as a friendly gesture. But the classmate either ratted out B.B. or the principal was told about it by the teacher, or something (because school administrators don’t have anything better to do than to police the political correctness of kids’ drawings).
The school’s principal, Jesus Becerra, admonished B.B., saying that the drawing was “inappropriate.” B.B. was ordered to apologize to her classmate, prohibited from drawing any more pictures in school, and prevented from going to recess for two weeks.
Ethics Villain (and toxic asshole) #1: Jesus Becerra. This is bullying, child abuse, and Big Brotheresque indoctrination. How dare a six-year-old fail to bow to the cant of Black Lives Matter! Or not draw better pictures to celebrate such cant. Or try to be friends with a black classmate…wait, why was this incident “inappropriate” again?
B.B. and her mother, Chelsea Boyle, no weenie she and thank heaven for that, filed a series of complaints against the Capistrano Unified School District alleging a First Amendment violation. Ya think?
“For more than 100 years the Supreme Court has recognized that children retain their civil rights when in school,” Caleb Trotter, an attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), which is representing the family, told Reason. “Just as a public school can’t punish a child for refusing to pledge to and salute the American flag, Capistrano Unified school officials could not punish B.B. for innocently straying from race-focused orthodoxy.”
Incredibly, District Court judge David O. Carter ruled in favor of the the school, claiming that he gave “great weight to the fact that the students involved were in first grade.” Suuuuure he did. Carter is an 80-year-old Democrat appointed by Bill Clinton, and if this ruling doesn’t send him into retirement, nothing will. Boyle and B.B. are appealing the decision, and the case will be heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. It will continue to waste time and money into 2025.
Ethics Villain and Dunce #2: Judge Carter. He relied on the famous school speech case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969) which held that whether the First Amendment extends to public school student speech depends on whether said speech “significantly interferes with the discipline needed for the school to function.” Really? Really, Judge Carter? Any school that is in danger of being disrupted by that ambiguous, crude drawing is so badly run it needs to be razed and the ground sown with salt. The picture wasn’t of a black student being lynched. It was wasn’t a picture of Fred Astaire playing Bill Robinson. The caption wasn’t “Kill Niggers Now ” or some other flaming racist slogan. No children are going to be offended or triggered by that crude little drawing unless the teachers and adults make sure they are.
Who are the other Ethics Villains, Dunces and assholes in this disgusting incident? Oh, only almost everyone other than B.B., her mother and the Pacific Legal Foundation:
- The school’s board, which didn’t immediately say, “Oh, good Lord, let’s apologize to B.B. and her family for this nonense, and by the way, you’re fired, Mr. Beccara.
- The other parents in the school, who didn’t line up in support of the unjustly punished child. They probably were afraid of being called racists if they weren’t knee-jerk Black Lives Matter race-baiters themselves.
- The lawyers who didn’t tell the school, “Just apologize and get out. This is a bad case, you are in the wrong, and you will eventually lose while we make money.”
- The State of California, which has nurtured such an insanely woke and widiculous culture that this kind of thing could happen.
- Progressives and the Democratic Party, which have made the culture of the Golden State clinically insane, so much so that it isn’t safe for six-year-olds.
I hate this story. I can’t hold back any more: my head has to explode now:
Ethics Alarms 
I saw this some time ago and found it over at SJ posted on March 20, 2024. He cites Eugene Volokh who also wrote about it on March 19, 2024. I’m not going to post the links. Anyone interested can just search “Capistrano” over at SJ.
It was just one more item that I just couldn’t wrap my head around because it just makes no sense. Well, I guess nothing is crazy in California.
Actually, I’m surprised Reason didn’t get to this earlier.
Something is not right about this story.
1. First graders (5-6 year old children) usually do not write that neatly.
2. First graders (5-6 year old children) usually do not write in a straight line on unlined paper.
3. The child doesn’t have the needed writing motor skills to stay within the lines when filling in the colors in the ovals below but can miraculously write the words above as neatly as a 4th or 5th grader?
I think this wreaks of a hoax, as in the 1st grader likely did the ovals and colored them but someone else wrote the text and that make me think that the whole story is fiction.
Strike the part about the whole story being fiction, court documents prove the story isn’t fiction but I stand by my assessment of the written text vs colored ovals skill comparison.
Frankly, the neat writing was probably supplied to the student, which is why the student felt compelled to amend what it said with “all lives”. What does it say, though, if the teacher is misspelling “matter”?
What teacher, never mind a teacher turned principal, tells a first grader anything is “inappropriate?”
I don’t remember being able to read until we were taught how to do so in second grade. And we were probably learning how to write letters, but not words or sentences. Something is fishy about how this piece of paper came into being.
We had a few stern teachers in grade school, but they all cared about us, even those of us who were difficult. These teachers seem to despise children. They seem more interested in snuffing out future Republicans and their parents than nurturing kids.
Old Bill wrote, “I don’t remember being able to read until we were taught how to do so in second grade. And we were probably learning how to write letters, but not words or sentences. Something is fishy about how this piece of paper came into being.”
Things have change a lot since I started 1st grade way down in Chattanooga, TN in 1963. I remember learning to write the alphabet with a great big fat pencil on paper that had large spaced guide lines with a dotted line between the guide lines lines. Now they are expected to know and write the alphabet with some kind of recognizable letters before they ever get to 1st grade, use standard lined paper whether they stay in the lines or not, standard size pencils, and deal with higher expectations. Preschool Daycares, Pre-K and Kindergarten have done a lot to help children gain some knowledge and skills before 1st grade.
My 6 grandchildren read and write very simple things in first grade, they even star them with some basic adding and subtracting and introduce other mathematic concepts via games. I’m really close to these grandchildren, see them all the time, I’ve seen it. On top of that, my wife is a volunteer at our local elementary school for 1st and 2nd grades and part of that is to help with reading, writing and mathematics; she has been directly exposed to lots of 1st and 2nd graders and agrees with me about the skill level of this drawing/note.
Out of our six grandchildren there was one that clearly had better writing motor skills and she still wasn’t nearly as good as what I saw in that drawing/note in this story, she could also color better than what I saw in that drawing/note. First graders are now encouraged to sound out things and write a lot even if it’s not spelled correctly and it does help most of them improve before they get into 2nd grade. You can see a difference between the time they enter 1st grade and the time they head on to 2nd grade.
My wife has been a regular volunteer like this at our local grade school since our 37 year old daughter started first grade, so roughly 30’ish years. She’s been around the elementary school longer than most of the current crop of teachers. She really enjoys it.
Good to know, Steve. Thanks. Interesting.
This is what happens when you violate the official morality of the state. We have an official state morality focusing on LGBTQIAA+++ superiority, abortion on demand, ‘anti-racism’, state censorship, and anti-Trump. Any violation of this is punished brutally by the state and state actors (like the media). This is the replacement for the Judeo-Christian morality that the country was founded with.
It is an interesting question as to whether this is ethical or not anymore. We now have 2 different system of ethics. This blog has been basing everything upon the older, Judeo-Christian morality and the ethics that sprung from it. In this particular example, the action is completely approved by the official state morality, hence the quick approval of all state administrators and the judge in the case. The same could be said for Tim Walz’s condemnation of freedom of speech. “The Great Stupid’ is the new morality, the new ethics that sprung from liberalism and postmodernism.