Students at a California high school are facing backlash after their student-run magazine published images depicting President Donald Trump as a Nazi and a policeman wearing a white KKK hood aiming his gun at a Black child.
The Pawprint, a student publication at the esteemed Bonita High School in La Verne, pulled the provocative political cartoons from Google Images and ran them as part of an article in which the author defended artists’ rights to use their images to spark meaningful dialogue about controversial issues, local station Fox 11 reported.
One of the cartoons showed a swastika hiding beneath Trump’s hair. The other portrayed a uniformed officer in KKK garb pointing his pistol at a small Black child carrying a baggie of Skittles, an apparent reference to Florida teen Trayvon Martin, who was shot and killed by neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman in 2012.
Leaders with the Bonita Unified School District weren’t pleased, nor were parents who felt certain politics were being forced upon their children. La Verne Police were reportedly also infuriated by the images, prompting the school district to issue an apology.
In a separate statement, however, the district defended students’ First Amendment rights.
“There is a California Education Code that affirms the First Amendment rights of student newspapers,” Carl Coles, interim superintendent of the Bonita School District, said in the statement. “The student journalist’s article does not represent the views of Bonita High School or the District.”
The article featuring the controversial images has since been pulled, both on campus and online.
