There are plenty of things wrong with this story including the fact that the student was suspended from school in the first place for saying "illegal alien." That was the case in an North Carolina school though and the story goes like this.
The student went to the bathroom during class and when he returned the teacher was talking about aliens and the student (who is known only as "Christian" and is not pictured because he is a minor) asked "are we talking about aliens from space or illegal aliens who need green cards?"
The question seems innocent enough but it kind of depends on how you voice it in your head. There is nothing inherently racist about what the kid said but for all we know this kid could be a little snot that is always kicking up trouble.
The story continues when a Latino kid in the same class said that he was going to kick Christian's ass. Fearing that the situation could escalate to actual physical violence, Christian was referred to the principal's office and was subsequently suspended from school for 3 days.
Rather than serve out the 3 days and file a complaint with the school board the parents decided to remove Christian from the school and sue the school system. Now,I am on the fence about if this was the right move because in the end Christian was determined to not be at fault and the school system acted improperly. The end result is that the school is being forced to issue an apology and provide Christian's family with $20,000 for the tuition associated with his new school.
This trial went on a for a FULL YEAR and almost certainly cost a great deal more than $20,000 to make it happen. Of course there were protests and counter protests outside of the school in question with people chomping at the bit to get their faces on social media for some sort of justice points with their echo-chambers.
Let me tell you a little story about when I was in middle school and my memory of it is a bit hazy but I still recall it. A fellow student who actually was a friend of mine said something that he thought was funny but it was about a family member of mine. I then escalated the situation and shoved him to the ground, daring him to back up what he just said. I was sent to the principal's office and so was he. The principal determined that we both receive punishment because my friend did not deny that he said what he did, and I did not deny that I shoved him. It wasn't a big deal and I ended up having to serve a day in suspension and my friend (we actually became closer friends after that) got after-school suspension called "detention." Even though I spent more time in that room, his punishment was likely worse because I was only in there during school hours, he had to stay an extra hour afterwards and if you remember what it was like to be in school, the 1 hour after school was the best hour of the day.
I think that in this situation that some of the new-speak snuck into this and the classroom became political. The word "illegal alien" is not offensive. "dirty Mexican, wetback, or fence-jumper" maybe could be but illegal alien is a term that is used in the government and is in the dictionary. Christian, at least based on the story we are given, didn't do anything wrong. The student who verbalized a physical threat did far worse.
In the end this could have been resolved right then and there with a discussion in the classroom about how "illegal alien" is in fact a real term, but if you are saying it in a way to get under someone's skin, it isn't the best idea. Something like that, I dunno, there's a reason why I never pursued being a teacher.
This situation was completely blown out of proportion and is a sign of the time really. When I was a kid there was no reason to ever get the court involved when a school sent you to the principal's office, and we certainly wouldn't have looked at our options and though that spending a year in a courtroom was the best option available to us.
So the school has to say a disingenuous apology and hand over $20,000 that isn't even their money anyway. In the meantime Christian's family made all of their lives much more difficult by being a part of this. I don't know if they were seeking 15 minutes of fame or some sort of "David Hogg" expressway into politics but in the end I feel as though this entire thing was a huge waste of time and resources.
We, as a society, need to grow TF up.