They’re coming for you next: When 13-year-old Jimmy Heyward decided to run for the position of “commissioner of spirit and patriotism” at St. Bonaventure Catholic middle school in Huntington Beach, California, he wrote a campaign speech that not only extolled the idea of patriotism, but wittily mimicked Donald Trump’s own campaign slogans. His conclusion:

So accordingly, I Jimmy Heyward, am running for Commissioner of Patriotism and School Spirit. I want to clarify that my ideas are not promises, but I can promise to make pep rallies great again! … I will make the school spirit great again! I will make patriotism within SBS great again! And most importantly I will MAKE SBS GREAT AGAIN!

The school principal, Mary Flock, didn’t like that. How dare he!

School principal Mary Flock allegedly reviewed Heyward’s election speech and said its content needed to be edited. After making edits, Heyward was allegedly informed he wouldn’t be allowed to speak because he had not removed “the stuff about patriotism.” [emphasis mine]

Heyward refused to do it. The position he was running for was for commissioner of patriotism. How could any reference to this very idea be verboten?

Flock responded by refusing to allow him to give the speech. Instead, Jimmy had to sit on the stage during the campaign assembly, watching as all the other candidates gave their speeches. “That was humiliating,” he noted in this television interview. During the event his father walked up to Flock and vice principal Caleb McFarren to complain, noting “how out of line they were for not allowing Jimmy to speak to his classmates just because his views didn’t align with theirs.” Their response was to call the police on him, according to his mother, Mary Ruggles.

They told my husband to leave or they would call someone to make him leave. He said he wouldn’t as he was there to support his son and then walked to the opposite side of the gate, away from everyone else and all students/faculty. The principal then proceeded to call HBPD [Huntington Beach Police Department] to further humiliate Jimmy. HBPD showed up, spoke with my husband and got the whole story about Jimmy’s speech and what had happened. They then told him he was free to stay and watch with the rest of the families in attendance. When the officers were leaving they asked Ed [the father] to let Jimmy know that they said “Thank you” for the things he wrote in his speech.

The boy’s mother was so outraged by Flock’s behavior that she started a petition to have her removed as principal of the school, quickly garnering almost 7,000 signers.

The school did not take kindly to any of this public dissent, and subsequently sent the family a letter, expelling not only Jimmy from the school but also his two younger sisters. According to the mother, she started her campaign because Flock and the school were so unwilling to talk to the family face-to-face about the situation.

The irony of this is that several weeks before it sent out this explusion letter to the family, the school also decided it agreed with the petition, announcing that Flock would also not be returning the next school year.

The tragedy of this whole story is how badly Flock and the school behaved. There was no reason to treat this kid in this manner, simply because he wanted to proudly wave the American flag. And to try to censor him because his speech made reference to a Trump slogan was so petty as to be pitiful.

But then, petty dictators are now everywhere in our culture, demanding utter obedience or they will attempt to squash you like a bug.