A Florida teen is no longer allowed to use the high school parking lot because of his Trump elephant in the back of his pickup truck.
Tyler Maxwell, 18, attends Spruce Creek High School, but last month the school took his parking lot privileges away because of the elephant painted with the word “Trump” for support.
“I wanted to put the elephant on the back of my truck because it was the first time that I was going to be able to vote,” Maxwell told The Daytona Beach News-Journal.
I support President Donald Trump and I wanted to be able to show that.
But the school defends its actions by specifying which school code Maxwell violated, which is school policy 805. The policy is against political affiliations and activities on its property. Maxwell’s elephant was one of them.
But now a lawsuit has been filed on the student’s behalf, citing a violation of his First Ammendment rights. “I felt like my First Amendment rights for expressing how I felt about the president were being suppressed, and I wasn’t going to just sit there and let them tell me I can’t express myself,” he stated.
“The school doesn’t have the right to suppress student’s political expression unless the school has a real or substantial basis to believe that the expression would disrupt school activities,” Maxwell’s attorney Jacob Hubert told WESH on Friday.
The attorney believes if bumper stickers and t-shirts are allowed than so should his client’s statue, the Daily Mail reports.
But the school feels differently, “We allow political expression by students in the form of a T-shirt or bumper sticker. But large signage is a different situation,” the spokesperson stated.
“A passerby could interpret a large sign in a school parking lot to be an endorsement by the school district.”
A Judge who was appointed by Obama had allowed Maxwell to go back to the school parking lot with his elephant statue while the legal proceedings continue.
