A teacher gave out vocabulary words in a classroom and that list included the word 'alien.' When a student asked if that meant 'space alien' or 'illegal aliens without green cards?' that student was suspended.
"You can't make this stuff up," WWL's Newell Normand said.
As first reported by the newspaper Carolina Journal, Christian McGhee was suspended from Central Davidson High School in Lexington, North Carolina, for three days last week after he allegedly said 'illegal alien' during an English class assignment.
The boy's mother, Leah McGhee, wrote an email to the Journal saying, "Because of his question our son was disciplined and given THREE days OUT of school suspension for ‘racism. He is devastated and concerned that the racism label on his school record will harm his future goal of receiving a track scholarship. We are concerned that he will fall behind in his classes due to being absent for three consecutive days."
The suspension went viral when it was picked up by conservative X account 'Libs of TikTok.' The post garnered more than 1 million views.
When Newsweek reached out to the school for comment, they sent this: "Please know that Davidson County Schools administrators take all discipline incidents seriously and investigate each one thoroughly. Any violation of the code of conduct is handled appropriately by administrators."