In 2021, a first-grader called B.B. in legal filings reportedly drew a picture for a friend in her Viejo Elementary School class that featured four round shapes, each a different shade of brown, yellow, or beige. Below the phrase "Black Lives Mater," she added the words "any life."
When the recipient's mother saw the drawing at home, she emailed the school saying she would not "tolerate any more messages" given to her child at school "because of her skin color."
The principal, Jesus Becerra, then confronted the seven-year-old B.B. and told her the drawing was "racist" and "inappropriate." B.B was reportedly forced to apologize "in front of everybody" and again to the girl for whom she had drawn the picture.
B.B.'s mother, Chelsea Boyle, did not find out about the incident until 2023, when another parent told her, and she soon filed a lawsuit against the Capistrano Unified School District. She says her daughter never mentioned what happened because she had gotten in so much trouble at school and did not want to get in more trouble at home.
B.B. later testified in court that she had given the drawing to her friend to make her feel comfortable after the class learned about Martin Luther King Jr.
Kendall Qualls, a faculty and resident at Crown College in Minnesota and the president and founder of the non-profit TakeCharge, says Judge David Carter has now ruled in favor of the school district because as "innocent" as B.B.'s intentions were, her drawing was not protected by the First Amendment.
"[He] said the student doesn't have freedom of speech because it's a student, not an adult," Qualls relays.
With the progressive Left trying to institute this "propaganda machine" against all Americans, he wonders what speech is acceptable.
"She wasn't using foul language; she was actually promoting … a Judeo-Christian viewpoint that the people's lives have meaning and substance for everyone," Qualls says of B.B. "It used to be pretty acceptable to say that, until … the progressive Left decided that there are certain things that are not acceptable to say anymore."
The goal, he says, is to create a society that is confused by what is right and wrong and quiet about what is evil.
In B.B.'s case, Boyle says the incident has had lasting impacts on her daughter; she is having severe anxiety and panic attacks, and the treatment they received ultimately forced them to move out of California.
"What people are going to do is they're going to not voice their opinions and thoughts vocally and publicly in fear of being reprimanded," Qualls predicts.
But the American people, he says, must stand up and prevail against this notion and be a beacon of hope.
For Boyle, the solidarity she has found with numerous families from the Capistrano Unified School District and elsewhere who have contacted her to let her know similar things have happened to them has pushed her along in the fight.
