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4th Grader Who Briefly Showed BB Gun During Virtual School Session Can’t Get Suspension Taken Off Permanent Record

   DailyWire.com
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In September, 9-year-old Ka’Mauri Harrison was suspended after his teacher briefly saw a BB gun in the young boy’s bedroom during a virtual class session.

Harrison’s family fought the suspension, arguing that their home was not an extension of the classroom and therefore Harrison could not be suspended for bringing a gun to school. The Louisiana state legislature passed a law named after Harrison to affirm how wrong the school behaved and yet still the school board refuses to remove Harrison’s suspension from his permanent record.

As The Daily Wire previously reported, Harrison was in his bedroom taking a test over a video stream when his teacher began waving at him. Since he was taking a test, Harrison’s computer was muted so he didn’t know why his teacher seemed upset. He moved to unmute her, but the livestream ended.

The reason Harrison’s teacher was waving is because she saw an unloaded BB gun in his bedroom and reported him to the school. Harrison faced expulsion The Washington Post reported at the time, but his sentence was reduced to a suspension after a hearing.

WWL-TV News reported earlier this month that the Harrison’s attempted to appeal the young boy’s suspension. The fourth grader told the school board he was simply moving the BB gun to keep his brother from tripping over it.

“Are you aware you were suspended because you brought a BB gun to school?” Chelsea Cusimano, the Harrison’s attorney, asked the young boy during the school board hearing.

“I didn’t bring my BB gun to school,” Harrison replied.

The school board didn’t seem to care, asking the young boy how his teacher must have felt after seeing the gun on the computer screen.

“I know what a BB gun looks like. And you know what it resembles? A real gun. OK? It resembles a real gun,” said former teacher and school board member Simeon Dickerson.

The Jefferson Parish Public Schools System released a statement after the hearing, saying: “We hope it is clear that we have and will continue to follow state law in regards to disciplinary matters. We are committed to making and standing by decisions that are in the best interests of our students and schools.”

The board ultimately decided not to remove Harrison’s suspension from his record, but they did change what the record said. Harrison’s permanent record now says he was suspended for three days and had three unexcused absences, which isn’t much better.

School board member Mark Morgan also excoriated the fact that the suspension of this young black child was picked up by the media.

“The only thing that hasn’t happened before is no one’s made this a media sensation,” Morgan said. “And the only reason that that happened is because of COVID because we’re in a virtual world.”

Former professor and free speech advocate Bret Weinstein summed up the school board’s decision on Twitter.

“If this child brought a gun to school, then by the same logic, his teacher is hanging out in students’ bedrooms,” Weinstein wrote.

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