Smithsonian Kicks Out Students for Wearing Pro-Life Hats

A federal institution, the Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum, just kicked out an entire group of pro-life students and their chaperones simply for having a pro-life religious message on their hats. It’s absolutely outrageous, it’s unconstitutional discrimination, and the ACLJ is fighting back.

Last Friday, students from a Catholic school in Greenville, South Carolina, traveled to Washington, D.C., to participate in the National March for Life. After the event, they went over to explore the nearby Smithsonian Air & Space Museum. Once in the museum, they were accosted several times and told they would be forced to leave unless they removed their pro-life hats. The group all wore the same blue hat that simply said, “Rosary PRO-LIFE.” Other individuals in the museum were wearing hats of all kinds without issue.

The museum staff mocked the students, called them expletives, and made comments that the museum was a “neutral zone” where they could not express such statements. The employee who ultimately forced the students to leave the museum was rubbing his hands together in glee as they exited the building. We here at the ACLJ are absolutely appalled at this blatant discrimination and won’t let this behavior stand.

Our client, the mother of two of the students, took to Twitter and said:

My daughter just called from DC. [A] dozen kids from Greenville just got kicked out of the Air & Space Museum for wearing Pro Life hats. They were told to remove their hats or leave. Daughter told [the] man they had to wear [the hats] to find each other in [the] crowd. KICKED OUT for refusing to remove!.. (Excerpt from LIFENEWS.COM)