A Monmouth County school district has suspended a teacher after yearbook photos of two high school students were altered to remove President Donald Trump's name on their clothing.
Wall Township School Superintendent Cheryl Dyer told News 12 New Jersey Monday that the yearbook's adviser was suspended while an investigation is underway.
One student wore a vest with Trump's name on it. Another student wore a T-shirt with the words "Trump Make America Great Again” printed on it. But neither feature appeared in the photos published in the yearbook.
“If the attire was altered in some way in order to silence that viewpoint, that is very problematic,” Dyer says. “It’s certainly not something that we would condone.”
Yearbook advisor and technology teacher Susan Parsons was suspended after the alterations came to light.
The district is also probing why a Trump quote submitted by the freshman class president wasn't included under her photo while a quote by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt appeared under the senior class president's photo.
“When you put all of these stories together, there's definitely something going on. There's a deliberate attempt to censor and to silence someone's freedom of speech,” student Wyatt Debrovich-Fago told “Fox and Friends.” Debrovich-Fago was one of the students whose shirt was altered.
Dyer says that the district encourages students to express their opinions in respectful dialogue.
"Unprecedented that someone would Photoshop a reference either to a political candidate at the time or the current president of the United States,” Dyer says.
More disciplinary actions may be taken once the investigation concludes, according to Dyer.