On Wednesday, November 9th, during advisory, Lincoln High School students held a rally protesting the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States. While a majority of students were critical of the President-elect, one student in particular voiced his support, declaring that he believed President-elect Trump would indeed, ‘Make America Great Again’.

The crowd had a mixed reaction, which included both obscenities and students urging each other to let him speak. Principal Hewitson, who was next to the stage during the rally, claimed “I heard a lot of students were saying … ‘Hey, give him his time to speak, give him his space,’ and they did.”

In an interview with Lion Tales, Mr. Burton suggested otherwise. “I was expecting the negative result in general from everyone that I saw when I was on stage,” he said, “I was used to it, I had seen it before and was expecting it.”

The threats were not unique to the rally, either. “The day I had my Trump sign on Halloween,” said Mr. Burton, “I had several people following me, threatening harm against me, following me for several minutes even though I was clearly trying to avoid them and walk away.”

When asked about the incident, Assistant Principal Heidi Hansen recalled: “On Halloween, a student … was dressed up as a Trump supporter walking around with a Trump sign. I heard on the radio that maybe some students were yelling some inappropriate things at him. I let him know that this is a safe space and that if anyone was giving him a hard time, he should feel comfortable coming to us.” 

“I was scared,” Mr. Burton said, “I think a lot of people feel that way and I can’t exactly blame them, I just blame the way they express it.”

“I think it’s gonna have to go through the teachers and administration,” Mr. Burton said when asked about how the school could improve its attitude towards dissenting opinions, “I’ve heard [almost] only negative things from every other teacher that I have spoken to about it.”

Soon after speaking at the rally, however, Mr. Burton received praise from some students. “I was not expecting all the congratulations that I [received] and all the praise that I [received] in the minutes after [the rally] from people I didn’t even know,” Mr. Burton said. “[They] affected me in a good way, … and I was very happy that at least the people who came up to me were [pleased] with what I did, no matter what my beliefs were.”

In an effort to make a case for himself, Mr. Burton said: “I don’t mean any harm and am not a racist. I’m a good person and this was not an easy choice for me to make in this election, I just went with who I thought was the better candidate.”