FORT WORTH – A foreign language class and the First Amendment collided at Western Hills High School on Tuesday when Dakota Ary said he made a casual comment to a friend.
“Someone in the back of the classroom asked, ‘What are the views on gays in Germany and Europe?,’” Ary explained. “And I said to my friend behind me that, ‘I’m a Christian, I believe gays are wrong.'”
The comment landed the high school freshmen in a vice-principal’s office with a disciplinary note.
School administrators then suspended Dakota for two days, until his mother hired an attorney and met with principals on Wednesday morning.
“That’s the reason we have the First Amendment and freedom of speech, because not everybody thinks the same way and we have the freedom to disagree in the marketplace of ideas and discussion," said Matt Krause, a constitutional attorney the family hired. "It’s OK if people take contradictory sides. Here, Dakota was just expressing his viewpoint. It might offend somebody but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”
Dakota’s mother, Holly Pope, said her son maintains good grades, plus he plays tight end on the freshmen football team.
The suspension over free speech is overblown, Pope said.
Krause said principals agreed with that viewpoint after their meeting Wednesday morning, when they canceled Ary’s second day of suspension, agreed to let him make up his work and also make sure his record doesn’t reflect what happened.
Still, Krause said he and Pope will watch to see if anyone tries to retaliate against the teenager by giving him bad grades.
Messages to a spokesman for the Fort Worth Independent School District were not immediately returned Wednesday evening.
E-mail jwhitely@wfaa.com
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