ACLU helped Black Lives Matter Activist Sue a School in San Francisco to Include a Yearbook Article about the Terrorist Group, and Won

Two Bay Area high school students, with some help from the ACLU, won their fight to pay tribute to the Black Lives Matter movement in their yearbook.



A Black Lives Matter piece almost didn’t make it into the Buckingham Charter Magnet High School yearbook because it divided the student body so heavily and administrators were worried about that.



In the end, it turned out to be a freedom of speech lesson for both administrators and students.



When Ariana Coleman and Vanessa Mewborn were asked by their school to put together a Black Lives Matter piece for their yearbook — initially they were taken aback.



Mewborn, a junior said, “You don’t really expect that coming out of Buckingham.”



But, they dove right in, interviewing teachers and students to find out how Buckingham Charter Magnet High School felt about race.



Not surprisingly, it became controversial.



Arianna Coleman, a senior said, “After all that work we did, after all the interviews and then you don’t run it because you think it’s racist?”



So, Coleman and Mewborn contacted the American Civil Liberties Union.



Abre’ Conner, a staff attorney with the ACLU said, “It was a clear violation of the First Amendment, state law and education code.”



They won.