Student punished for staying in classroom during walkout at center of controversy

An Ohio high school student has found himself at the center of political controversy after an online post about his suspension for staying in class during the national student school walkout went viral.

But that story isn’t exactly true.

Jacob Shoemaker, a senior at Hilliard Davidson High School in Hilliard, Ohio, was in fact suspended. But not because he chose not to join his classmates and the hundreds of thousands of students across the country who walked out of their classrooms to protest gun violence in the wake of a Florida school shooting that left 17 people dead. It was because he didn’t go to a designated area of the school where the nonprotesters were supposed to be, and instead stayed by himself in a classroom.

He stayed in the classroom, his father said, because he didn’t want to choose a side.

“He was uncomfortable going to either location as he thought that going outside would most likely be politicizing a horrific event which he wanted no part of,” his father, Scott Shoemaker,wrote in a Facebook post Friday. “But staying inside would make him look disrespectful or insensitive to 17 innocent victims if it turned out to be more of a memorial service.”

On social media, however, Shoemaker’s nowviral suspension slip has been spun into a tale about how a liberal school system impeded the rights of a student who supported the Second Amendment, and misleading headlines painted a picture of Shoemaker being suspended solely on the grounds that he did not participate in the walkout.

This comes at a time when the push for greater gun control has gained momentum, with the Florida shooting survivors set to lead a guncontrol march on Washington on March 24. The response to these efforts have at times fallen along partisan lines.

On Twitter, users shared Shoemaker’s photos of the suspension slip with hashtags such as #GunControlNever and #LiberalismIsAMentalDisorder. One person tweeted, “To paraphrase George Orwell, some speech is more equal than others.”

Shoemaker’s father said he has been inundated with so many supportive messages and threats from strangers who saw the viral posts that he is considering changing his number, he told the Independent in Massillon, Ohio. One of Shoemaker’s father’s old phone numbers, as well as the numbers of school district officials, have been circulating on social media. One Twitter user singled out Hilliard Davidson Principal Aaron Cookson for being a “#BadEducator” and “#BadDad.”