‘MAGA’ mom disputes East Valley high school’s version of attire incident

PHOENIX – In a case being investigated by the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, an East Valley mother’s legal team called school officials’ description of an incident involving “MAGA” attire “incomplete, misleading and self-serving.”

In a letter dated April 18 and provided to KTAR News 92.3 FM by the attorney general’s office this week, Jennifer Farris’ representatives said Perry High School officials directed her two children to remove clothing bearing the pro-President Donald Trump slogan “Make America Great Again,” violating their First Amendment rights for free speech.

The letter and supporting documents were in response to a report on the March 1 incident submitted by Chandler Unified School District on April 8.

The district’s report, which included accounts from school officials and student witnesses, made the case that nobody was targeted or disciplined on the basis of their political message.

The district said one student involved was suspended for failing to identify herself to school officials on campus three times.

According to Freedom X, the law firm representing Farris, “The district’s ‘investigation’ of events is incomplete, misleading and self-serving.” The nonprofit firm says its mission is to defend conservative and religious speech rights.

Students had been encouraged to wear red, white and blue clothing on the day of the incident as part of “Party in the USA” day during spirit week.

After her daughter called after school to say she was in trouble for wearing a MAGA sweatshirt, Farris went to the Perry campus and got into an argument with administrators.

Farris recorded the confrontation, and the video was posted to social media. Freedom X said the video shows that the district’s description of the confrontation was not accurate, specifically claims that Farris was screaming and using profanity.

The district said school officials’ on-campus interaction with Farris’ children and others with MAGA gear after school let out was colored by alleged incidents of incitement by pro-Trump students earlier in the day, which caused “heightened tensions.”

Freedom X’s letter called that explanation “woefully vague and doesn’t begin to establish a material fact justifying the suppression of political expression.”

“I don’t think that if it would have been any other president, you know, Obama, Bush, any other president, I don’t think that it would be – I don’t think it would have been made into the big deal that it was,” Farris told KTAR News’ Arizona’s Morning News last month.

The story spread nationally, Trump supporters protested outside the school, and Arizona House Republicans sent a letter to the attorney general’s office urging an investigation into potential First Amendment rights violations.

“Reserving judgment, we just want to make sure that if people are being punished, discipline is being done in a consistent and a fair manner,” Attorney General Mark Brnovich told Arizona’s Morning News last month.

The matter is still under review, a spokesperson for Brnovich told KTAR News this week.

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