A student is once again facing punishment for speech outside of school — but this time it may cost a New Jersey private school student his future.
Yuri Wright, a senior football star, was expelled from Don Bosco Preparatory High School for explicit tweeting. He was ranked as the seventh best high school cornerback in the country and was No. 85 in the ranking for high school football nationally.
Schools including the University of Michigan, Rutgers and the University of Notre Dame were scouting Wright, and many had already given him offers.
Now, though, his athletic future is in question. Michigan has already revoked its offer, and other schools may do the same.
“It was pretty simple really, what he wrote were some graphic sex things,” Don Bosco coach Greg Toal told ESPN. “This is a Catholic school, things like that cannot happen. It was totally inappropriate.”
Since it’s a private school, there’s little Wright can do legally to get himself back into the school. Toal said Wright was warned several times to stop, but didn’t. He said the school “did what it had to do.”
Last week, the Supreme Court decided not to rule on the off-campus speech rights of public school students. Even so, Student Press Law Center attorney advocate Adam Goldstein said he’s confident Wright couldn’t have been expelled if he attended public school. His recruitability, though, probably would still have been damaged.
The tweets in question were racial and explicit. Though his Twitter account has since been deleted, some tweets can be found here. (Just be warned they’re pretty raunchy.)
Goldstein said he’s concerned about the fairness of the school’s decision.
“Is it every time a teenage male lusts after a woman, he’ll be expelled?” Goldstein said. “I really don’t know what (the school) expects.”