Yet another example of why American parents are increasingly pulling their kids out of public institutions and turning to home schooling. Parents at an elementary school in Kansas are upset after students were reportedly told that they were not allowed to list President Donald Trump, late conservative activist Charlie Kirk and even Jesus Christ as their role models for an assignment.
The incident at Marshall Elementary School in Eureka, Kansas occurred in October and only recently came to light because students were originally instructed not to tell their parents about what happened. The American Center for Law & Justice, described as “a politically conservative, Christian-based legal organization,” has filed a formal civil rights complaint with the school.
The complaint accuses the district and Marshall Elementary School of religious discrimination, political or viewpoint discrimination, violation of free speech rights and retaliation. Students say a school guidance counselor, Kacey Countryman, gave sixth-graders an assignment called “Find Your Voice” as part of their "Leader In Me" program. They were asked to identify their role models, but conservative role models were apparently not allowed.
“When a student identified Charlie Kirk as a role model, the guidance counselor got very uncomfortable and refused to allow this name to be written on the board, yelling that he was ‘not a hero,’ and that he was not a role model,” the complaint says. When a student chose Trump as their role model, the guidance counselor reportedly had the same response.
Another parent says their child picked Jesus and was also denied.
Unreal. Sixth grade students at a Kansas public school were told they could not name Charlie Kirk as a role model for an assignment.
— Andrew Kolvet (@AndrewKolvet) January 16, 2026
The assignment was called “Find Your Voice,” in which the students were asked to identify their role models.
“When a student identified Charlie… pic.twitter.com/S3yS39qBlW
The complaint notes that “When a student selected President Donald J. Trump as a role model, the guidance counselor reiterated her prohibition even more angrily, stating that students could not write political or religious figures on the board, and in fact excluded political and religious topics altogether."
Reports note that children picking secular and potentially controversial figures did not receive the same backlash from the counselor.
The ACLJ has investigated a number of similar incidents in the past involving public school officials, including a recent controversy involving a Hawaiian school teacher who was punished by the district for allowing her students to talk about the assassination of Charlie Kirk during a Constitution Day discussion on free speech.
Adminstrators placed a disciplinary memo in her file threatening future sanctions and told her she must immediately “shut down” any spontaneous student discussions on undefined “controversial issues.”
These kinds of censorious policies run completely contrary to the spirit of the First Amendment and basic civics once taught in US schools in previous generations. The common conservative accusation that public schools have become poisonous indoctrination centers for the political left is proved correct weekly by similar stories of students being silenced for normal speech.
The crackdown accelerated during the Biden Administration, along with the invasion of woke political propaganda into many taxpayer funded schools. The agenda is clear: Children are being bullied and extorted into abandoning conservative ideals. They are forced to embrace progressive talking points as a way to keep peace in their academic lives.
There is no doubt that the rise of woke insanity in American society directly coincides with the decline of parental rights and participation in educational institutions. School officials believe their job is not to simply teach basic academic mastery; they think their job is to program the next generation with far-left software. Activist teachers and administrators believe their mission is to "correct" the principles instilled in children by their parents, and condition students to join the liberal hive mind.
