Teenage girl expelled from Christian school after celebrating her birthday with a rainbow cake
Rainbow cake (Image by Silke_U from Pixabay)
A teenage girl has allegedly been expelled from a school in Louisville, Kentucky because she celebrated her birthday with a rainbow cake.
The girl – whose name has not been released – is, according to her mother, not even LGBT+. They simply ordered a birthday cake in “assorted colours”.
Her mother Kimberly Alford told The Courier Journal that she posted a photo of her daughter with a rainbow cake on Facebook towards the end of December. Her daughter had been a student at Christian private school Whitefield Academy since she was in sixth grade.
Alford said she later received an email from the school’s principal Bruce Jacobson saying her daughter was being expelled “immediately due to a post on social media”.
Teenage girl’s rainbow birthday cake came after other ‘lifestyle violations’, Christian school principal claims.
The girl’s mother claimed that the principal said the photo with the rainbow cake “demonstrates a posture of morality and cultural acceptance contrary to that of Whitefield Academy’s beliefs”. Furthermore, he reportedly told her that the rainbow cake came after two years of “lifestyle violations.”
Alford hit out at school officials for putting a label on her daughter and said that using the rainbow colours did not necessarily mean her daughter was gay.
“She did nothing wrong,” she added.
On occasion, the atmosphere or conduct within a particular home may be counter or in opposition to the biblical lifestyle the school teaches.
The woman said that her daughter had been put on “probation” by the school in October after school officials found e-cigarette liquid in her backpack. However, she insisted that there have been “no disciplinary issues” since then.
The school’s principal Jacobson told The Courier Journal that Alford’s daughter was expelled after “two years of continuous violations” of the student code of conduct. When questioned, he refused to say whether the photo of the girl with a rainbow cake had influenced her expulsion, and said she had faced “a progression of discipline” at the school.
The school’s student handbook insists students do not live ‘in opposition to the biblical lifestyle’.
The school’s student/parent handbook says that students can be expelled due to a “serious departure” from guidelines.
Under its section on student behaviour says the school’s “biblical role is to work in conjunction with the home to mould students to be Christ-like”.
The handbook continues: “On occasion, the atmosphere or conduct within a particular home may be counter or in opposition to the biblical lifestyle the school teaches. This includes, but is not limited to, sexual immorality, homosexual orientation or the inability to support Biblical standards of right and wrong.”
Alford said she appealed the expulsion but was rejected, and claimed the school principal told her that rainbow colours “just kind of represents gay pride” and said she should have “refused the cake”.
