The family of a California middle school student is suing after the 8th-grader wore eye black to a football game and was suspended following accusations that it was "blackface."
Daniel Ameduri, his son J.A. and their lawyer joined "Fox & Friends" on Wednesday to discuss their lawsuit against school officials over the Oct. 13 incident that resulted in a two-day suspension and a ban from attending district sporting events.
"It was a normal day, everything was normal. No one said anything. It was a normal football game and La Jolla won," J.A. said, noting that he put black eye paint on like football players do to attend a high school game between La Jolla High School and Morse High School.
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"I used to go to a lot of football games when I lived in Texas, and I used to play football and sometimes we put that on if one of the kids brought it," he added.
Host Ainsley Earhardt asked, "Wasn’t there a security guard there? He’s a Black security guard, and he came up to you and complimented you on it?"
"I asked him, ‘How did it look?’ and he said, ‘The spikes need to go higher,’" J.A. said.
Ameduri said he was "shocked" days later when his son was called into the principal’s office. He said no one complained at the game and there was "no incident" involving his son.
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"Then the following Monday, Tuesday, nothing," he continued. "Wednesday afternoon the principal called J.A. into the office, and the next morning my wife and I showed up and he said, ‘He did blackface,’ and he was suspended for two days and was gonna be banned from sports."
Ameduri said he then showed the Muirlands Middle School principal a photo from that night, which he thought would end the controversy and "vindicate" his son.
"He was like, ‘No, that’s blackface,'" Ameduri said.
"Anyone that has ever been to a sports game knows that this is very normal and these are kids that were playing hide and seek a few days prior at my house… half of the group are minorities, some of them African American, it’s just ridiculous that this would be a racial incident," he said.
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Karin Sweigart, who is representing the family, explained the lawsuit.
"We’re suing the principal directly, the superintendent and then the people who made the decision to rubber stamp the principal’s ridiculous decision to suspend J.A.," Sweigart said.
"There was a recent case just in the last couple of years at the Supreme Court where they talked about the out-of-school speech rights that students have to be able to express themselves. It was very clear that unless you have a substantial disruption on the campus, schools cannot restrict the out-of-school speech rights of students," she added. "Here the school is just going way beyond the constitutional strictures that they have to be able to regulate student speech."
Sweigart also accused the schools of failing to provide due process.
J.A. said he never meant to offend or harm anyone.
"The only people showing absolute racism right now is the school and the school administrators," Ameduri said. "There wasn’t even a real investigation."
Earhardt said "Fox & Friends" reached out to the San Diego Unified School District for comment but did not receive a response.
Fox News’ Kyle Morris contributed to this report.
