Being a 16-year-old in high school is hard enough. It’s a different ball game entirely when you’re actively involved in politics. Sadly, for many young conservative teens across our country, the pressure to conform and abandon their beliefs comes not only from student bullies but from adults.
Ella Smith, 16, is a homeschooled student in southern Nevada who is also enrolled in her local high school choir in Clark County as an elective. She works part-time as a door knocker for Commit 100, a joint program coordinated by conservative nonprofit groups Turning Point Action and Citizens Alliance. Her job is simple: Find 100 registered Republicans unlikely to vote outside of presidential elections and get each of them to make a plan to vote, whether by mail or in person.
Can conservative students participate openly in their school communities without risking their reputations or physical safety?
Since the assassination of Charlie Kirk last September, hostility from students and teachers with differing viewpoints has escalated.
In mid-September, Ella was knocking on doors in Boulder City, Nevada, with her grandmother, who also canvasses for Commit 100. The next day as she walked through the hallways to go to choir, a school employee asked her to step into the front office and confronted her about her after-school activities. By the end of the conversation, she was left in tears.
According to the family, a school employee said she was speaking on behalf of the vice principal. She then allegedly accused Ella of going around town telling people how to vote and claiming to represent the school. The employee also said the school had received anonymous Ring camera footage of Ella door knocking and that she’d already watched the footage.
The school employee continued pressing these allegations in front of other faculty and students nearby, turning the confrontation into a public embarrassment. Ella described the exchange as “condescending and intimidating.” To make matters worse, other students and staff remained within earshot during the full length of the interaction.
A teenager should not have to choose between participating in civic life outside school and being treated with dignity inside it. Sadly, accounts from the past year from within Clark County suggest that principle is still in need of defending.
Ella’s mother, Mica Smith, later contacted the vice principal’s office directly. She wanted to understand why the school felt the need to pull her daughter aside over an after-school job.
The vice principal reached out days later and said she had reviewed the footage, found that Ella had done nothing wrong, and said the staff member who pulled her aside had acted inappropriately, leading to an apology.
Those acknowledgments matter, but a simple “sorry” is only the beginning of accountability. What corrective actions were taken? Why was an employee who wasn’t a teacher and had no authority to accuse or discipline a student so confident she could do both? What assurances do Ella and other conservative students involved in civic engagements have that it won’t happen again?
RELATED: The danger of calling the left stupid
ALEX EDELMAN/AFP/Getty Images
Ella’s family believes she was treated this way because of her work for a conservative cause. That motive hasn’t been independently established. However, no one needs to settle the question of motive to recognize how serious her account is, especially given what the school itself has admitted. This is especially true when you look at the state of our classrooms throughout the country and even in Clark County.
Sadly, Ella is not the only young conservative in the community reportedly describing hostility.
Around the same time, the secretary of the Turning Point-sponsored Club America chapter at Veterans Tribute Career and Technical Academy addressed the Clark County school board in late September. The student described repeated online and in-person harassment, bullying, and threats from other students over the club’s conservative beliefs.
Between student bullies and adults who single out conservative students, families deserve an answer to a basic question: Can conservative students participate openly in their school communities without risking their reputations or physical safety?
These don’t appear to be isolated incidents.
Last September, Clark County School District Superintendent Jhone Ebert announced that an unspecified number of teachers were removed from classrooms after posts were discovered on their personal social media profiles mocking and celebrating the murder of Charlie Kirk.
The district did not tell parents which teachers had been removed. Families shouldn’t have to wonder whether the people responsible for educating their children celebrated the killing of a man who went to college campuses to have peaceful conversations.
RELATED: Democrats have a political violence problem
Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu/Getty Images
These incidents are not limited to Nevada.
Last month, the University of Utah made headlines when it investigated two College Republicans for alleged doxxing. On the anniversary of Kirk’s assassination, the students shared photos online of a liberal student with a cake that read “Happy Kirkiversary.” The university ultimately dropped the case due to lack of evidence, and the Office of the Dean of Students emailed the two students and apologized for the inconvenience. But by then, the damage was done.
There was a time when a simple “sorry” and “we’re taking care of it” was enough for parents to let situations like these go. But over the last decade, censorship and intimidation have escalated on high school and college campuses across the country.
Expecting accountability from students and staff who misbehave is not a demand for ideological agreement. No one is asking them to bend a knee and convert. But in a functioning society, we shouldn’t have to demand tolerance and basic professionalism from the people running our schools.
There is an inspiring silver lining in all of these situations: the courage of young conservatives standing up for themselves and what they believe.
Ella has continued to knock on doors with her grandmother every day since the incident. Club America chapters are still popping up across the country by the hundreds, especially since Charlie Kirk’s death. And College Republicans aren’t backing down from continuing their meetings and activities.
Ella’s willingness to work, participate in her community, and stand by her convictions reflects the kind of patriotism and responsibility Americans should want to encourage in young people.