Smithsonian apologizes after museum security guard kicked out 15 students for wearing anti-abortion beanie hats
Washington DC March 17 2023 The Smithsonian has apologized for booting a group of 15 Catholic school students out of the National Air and Space Museum for wearing beanie hats featuring an anti-abortion slogan.
The museum also signed a consent order promising that visitors would never again face being ejected for visible political speech after a civil liberties group filed a lawsuit.
Teenagers from Our Lady of the Rosary private school in Greenville were on a trip to Washington DC for the March for Life on January 20 when they visited the museum.
They went in wearing their bright blue beanie hats from the march, which had ‘ROSARY PRO-LIFE’ embroidered on the front.
Lawyers for the students and their chaperones say security employees asked them multiple times to take off their hats before being told to leave the museum. They claim others wearing hats with different messages were not asked to do the same.
Ben Sisney, Senior Litigation Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice and lead attorney for the students, said that the students were told the museum is a ‘neutral zone’ where they couldn’t express political opinions.
‘To think that a group of kids from a Christian school in Greenville, South Carolina are to come up to D.C. for a big opportunity to engage and express their beliefs and see the nation’s capital and be treated like that is outrageous,’ he said.
The Smithsonian issued an apology after the students spoke out via their attorneys in February.
‘We apologize that visitors were asked to remove their hats. Asking visitors to remove hats and clothing is not in keeping with our policy or protocols.’
‘We provided immediate training to prevent a reoccurrence of this kind of incident and we have determined steps to ensure this does not happen again.’
The ACLJ also alleges that the Smithsonian has agreed to a consent order that would prevent similar incidents like this from happening again.
‘This is a positive step that validates that what they went through was wrong,’ said Sisney. ‘This agreed order just sets in stone that that won’t happen while this case is pending.’
However, legal action is likely not done yet, as the ACLJ is suing the museum on behalf the students.
The organization is also representing a group of schoolchildren who visited the National Archives – the building that houses the original Constitution and Bill of Rights – that same day and were also kicked out for anti-abortion clothing, according to WSPA.
The ACLJ believes that the case will likely begin mediation within the next three months.
‘We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us. We are going to go to mediation and we’ll see if we can resolve the case or narrow the issues of dispute,’ said Sisney. ‘This case could, in theory, last quite a while as lawsuits can do.’
‘It’s our belief that the case will resolve either by settlement or trial with a final order of that nature, or maybe even one that goes farther than that,’ he added.
‘Thousands of Catholic students attend the March for Life every year and we support their right to stand for life,’ the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston, who oversees Our Lady of the Rosary School, said in a statement when they students were originally kicked out.
