Student Punished For Nazi Salute

Posted: February 7, 2013 A 14-year-old UK student has been accused of mimicking his teacher in a racist manner. When she used her hand to gesture quiet to the class, Ben Hayward stretched out his left arm, clicked his heels, and gave her a Nazi salute. Ben was given a two hour detention for the incident, which happened last November. The boy claims he was unaware of the anti-Semitic context of the gesture, denying both the cultural implications and uttering “Hail Hitler” while doing it. The schoolboy’s father, Scott Hayward, also maintains the child was not acting in a racist manner, only playfully impersonating the instructor. “At best,” Mr. Hayward asserts, “it could have been seen as...