9 Year Old Suspended for Saying Merry Christmas’ – Hoax

There are reports circulating claiming that a fourth grade boy from San Francisco was suspended from school for wishing his atheist teacher a Merry Christmas.

The claim in reports are not true.  There was not a suspension, nor was there a boy getting in trouble for saying Merry Christmas at school.

The story originates from a satirical fake-news website, National Report.

The National Report, reads “America’s #1 Independent News Team as the headline in search engines.

Only if you look at the “Disclaimer”, you will see this is a satire website.  There is no where in the description that tells visitors the website is fake.

 

Analysis

This story is a report that is going around via social media, blogs, and forums.  The tale of Timothy Dawson, a 9-year old boy was suspended from his San Francisco elementary school, because he wished Paul Horner, his atheist teacher a Merry Christmas.

Supposedly, the teacher was offended by Timothy’s Christmas greeting and arranged for him to be suspended for the rest of the week as a punishment.  The report is advertising this as an ongoing “war on Christmas”.

This story is fake, but the school really exists.  The fake news story originally referred to the “Argon Elementary School”, close enough to San Francisco’s “Argonne Elementary School” for false assumptions to be made.  The school was forced to publish the following notice on its website:

Dear Argonne School Community,

I am writing to inform you that a news story was published stating that a fourth grade student from Argon Elementary in San Francisco was suspended for saying “Merry Christmas” to a teacher. The incident did not occur at our school, Argonne Elementary or any school in the San Francisco Unified School District.

Thank you for continuing to support our school community.Warm regards,
Cami Okubo Principal at Argonne Elementary

Since the report, the National Report article has changed the name of the school it mentions to “Anon Elementary School”.  Even-though,  the damage is already done.

Paul Horner, the supposed atheist teacher, is not new to National report stories.  He was supposedly the first man to marry an animal in a “State Recognized Human-Animal Marriage”.  Also, he is the same man to have won an award for having a very large appendage.

This goes to show, not everything you read in the news is true.  What stories have you seen spreading through social media that are made up?  Please leave your comments below.

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References:

Hoax – ’9 Year Old Suspended From School for Saying Merry Christmas’ – Hoax-Slayer
http://www.hoax-slayer.com/nine-year-old-suspended-merry…
December 18, 2013