An enthusiastic 9-year-old Donald Trump supporter in California is in hot water with his elementary school after he refused to take off his “Make America Great Again” hat, local TV station KFSN reported.
Logan Autry said the principal and vice principal at Powers-Ginsburg Elementary School in Fresno told him to remove his hat because of safety concerns. Autry told them he would not remove his hat, citing freedom of speech, according to WTVR.
“It’s my favorite hat,” Logan told the news station. “The First Amendment says I can wear my hat.”
Prior to the requests from his school to remove his hat, Autry had worn it to class for three days straight—and each day tensions continued to heighten, KFSN reported. Other children reportedly approached Audry about the hat and began getting into fights with him about Trump and his policies.
“I’ve told them his policies on illegal immigration, and our Second Amendment, and our First amendment and all of our amendments that need to be protected which are not going to be an amendment at all if Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders gets elected,” Autry told the station.
While school district officials cited Autry’s hat as the cause of those incidents, the young Trump supporter has other ideas about was sparked his classmates’ hostility.
“I still want to keep my hat. It’s not the hat that draws attention, it’s just my personality that the other children do not like,” he told KFSN.
Autry got his hat from a Trump rally on May 27 in Fresno that he skipped school to attend, according to KFSN. He said he met Trump there and and even touched his distinctive hair.
“I got to shake his hand and I felt his hair too, and it’s actually real,” Autry told KFSN. “On the TV it looks not real, but it like, has a blur but when you see it in real life it looks a lot different.”
The Fresno Unified School District released a statement to KFSN explaining administrators’ decision to ask Autry to remove the hat.
“Our job as educators is to facilitate a safe learning environment where we encourage robust conversations of diverse and thoughts,” the statement reads. “We are proud that in this case, our school achieved that goal by allowing the student to wear his hat for several days. However, it is also our responsibility to take precautions when the discourse begins to impact our school climate and interrupt school operations.”
It looks like Autry may be able to return to school without the temptation of wearing his hat, though: Fox News reported that his dog tore it to shreds while he was swimming.
