The National Honor Society rejected a New Jersey high schooler due to his support of President Donald Trump, according to the student.
Holmdel High School student Boris Kizenko says that he was denied acceptance into the National Honor Society (NHS) due to his support for President Trump, despite having “checked all the boxes” with regards to the NHS’s grade and community service requirements.
Kizenko claims that the school’s administration and council told him he had a “character flaw,” after the student had posted a quote by President Trump on a class Instagram account that he had been managing.
“I had established a ‘quote of the day’ campaign where I would post inspirational quotes from a variety of different thinkers and world leaders,” Kizenko told Breitbart News, adding that the quotes he had chosen were by anyone from Marcus Aurelius, to Nelson Mandela, to Drake.
The student said that the class adviser had demanded the password for the Instagram account on the same day that he posted a quote by President Trump. Kizenko added the adviser then called him a “Monarch” for using social media in that way.
“I posted inspirational quotes every day, as the class president and manager of the account,” said Kizenko to Breitbart News, “but I only received disciplinary action after posting this one. They said it was ‘not representing the values of the class.'”
Kizenko said that the specific quote he had posted was: “I like thinking big. If you’re going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big.”
“I appealed [the adviser’s] authority, and she brought me in to speak to the Vice Principal where they forced me to relinquish the password and removed the Trump quote from the Instagram,” added Kizenko.
The student says that he then received a Conduct Report for “challenging” his class adviser over the Instagram account. Kizenko says that the Conduct Report included a detention, which was later rescinded by the Vice Principal after the student’s family contacted the school.
Subsequently, Kizenko received a letter from the NHS’s Holmdel High School chapter, informing the student that he had been rejected by the society.
“Though, as a result of your excellent cumulative GPA, you were initially eligible as a candidate,” reads the letter to Kizenko, obtained by Breitbart News, “The council found your efforts in the areas of Character and Leadership to be below our chapter selection standards.”
The school denies Kizenko’s claims that political affiliation was what motivated its NHS chapter to deny the student’s acceptance.
“I can confirm that political affiliation is not a consideration for National Honor Society acceptance and that no student would be denied admittance to NHS based on his/her political speech or political party affiliation,” said Superintendent Robert McGarry to the Asbury Park Press.
The “character flaw” accusation that was derived from an incident involving a pro-Trump social media post, however, appears to be a loophole for denying the conservative student’s acceptance to the NHS.
Holmdel High School did not respond to Breitbart News’ request for clarification about what Kizenko’s alleged “character flaw” was in reference to, or about the student’s detention that the school had later rescinded.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo and on Instagram.