Muirlands Middle School officials are being sued by the family of a 13-year-old student who was suspended for being accused of wearing “blackface” to a football game.
According to Fox News, J.A. Ameduri was not only suspended but also banned from participating in any middle school sports after attending a football game between La Jolla High School and Morse High School.
J.A. noted that he put on black face paint like various football players do. He said, “It was a normal day, everything was normal. No one said anything. It was a normal football game and La Jolla won.”
He explained that while at the game, a black security guard even complimented him on his facepaint. “I asked him, ‘How did it look?’ and he said, ‘The spikes need to go higher,” J.A. stated.
J.A.’s father noted the shock of being contacted by the school principal days later.
Ameduri said, “Wednesday afternoon the principal called J.A. into the office, and the next morning my wife and I showed up and he said, ‘He did blackface,’ and he was suspended for two days and was gonna be banned from sports.”
He showed the principal a picture of his son at the game in an attempt to clear J.A.’s name, but was told, “No, that’s blackface.”
“Anyone that has ever been to a sports game knows that this is very normal and these are kids that were playing hide and seek a few days prior at my house… half of the group are minorities, some of them African American, it’s just ridiculous that this would be a racial incident,” Ameduri added.
The family’s lawyer, Karin Sweigart, explained to Fox News, “We’re suing the principal directly, the superintendent and then the people who made the decision to rubber stamp the principal’s ridiculous decision to suspend J.A.”
J.A. went on to describe that he was just trying to enjoy a high school football game and never meant any racial offense.
“The only people showing absolute racism right now is the school and the school administrators,” he concluded.