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Grant Berardo, a Wall High School junior, saw his image digitally altered with a plain black T-shirt in his yearbook.

WALL - The school district settled a lawsuit withthe former high school teacherwho received harassmentfrom students and death threats from across the countryafter she digitally altered a yearbook photo to removea logo for former President Donald Trump's campaign a change she says was ordered by the school principal.

Susan Parsons, 66, filed a lawsuit against the school district in 2019, alleging that she faced death threats after digitally removing a campaign logo forTrump's 2016 presidential campaign from a student's T-shirt while editing the 2017 Wall High School yearbook.

In the lawsuit, she alleged the digital alteration and other cuts were ordered by the school principal's office.

"During these conversations, (Parsons) and the administration often disagreed about the direct edits and what (Parsons) believed to be improper censorship to the yearbook," the complaint states. "Directed edits included requests to Photoshop, crop and delete photos or content in the drafts of the yearbook pages."

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The amount of the settlement was not publicly disclosed. NJ Advance Media reported a total settlement award of $325,000, with $204,000 going to Parsons and the remainder to attorney fees.

In June 2017, the Wall High School yearbook became another battleground over the Trump presidency after three students reported that their Trump-related contributions to the yearbook were left on the cutting room floor most notably student Grant Berardo, who wore a navy T-shirt on school picture day with the Trump campaign logo, including the phrase "Make America Great Again."

The slogan was scrubbed from the published image.

Wall Township High School junior Grant Berardo's T-shirt was digitally altered in the school's yearbook. He wore a Donald Trump campaign shirt for his portrait.(Photo: Courtesy of Joseph Berardo, Jr.)

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When Berardo's parents complained to the school about the digital alteration and the story went viral Berardo appeared on national cable news talk shows to talk about the incident Parsons was immediately suspended. New yearbooks with the unaltered photo of Berardo were eventually ordered.

It wasn't the first time school officials requested yearbook alterations, Parsons said. In one yearbook, that included whiting out a bumper sticker that read"feminism is the radical notion that women are people," placing digitally rendered T-shirts onto shirtless students going swimming and removing writing on two students' upper chests, according to the lawsuit.

At the time:Trump thanks Wall students for 'standing up' to yearbook censorship

Parsons retired from the school district after the 2017-18 school year, during which she reported being "disrespected and ridiculed by students and other persons who believe she was responsible for editing the Trump T-shirt in the 2017 yearbook," according to the complaint.

Wall is a town with strong Republican ties, with every Republican presidential candidate carrying the town by over 60% until Trump's 2020 re-election campaign, which carried the town by 58%.

Parsons, a Trump voter in2016, alleged that her First Amendment rights were violated by formerSuperintendent Cheryl Dyer, who barred her from speaking to reporters after the scandal became a national story, leading to the death threats.

Wall Superintendent Tracy Handerhan declined tocomment.

Mike Davis has spent the last decade covering New Jersey local news, marijuana legalization, transportation and basically whatever else is going on at any given moment. Contact him atmdavis@gannettnj.comor@byMikeDavison Twitter.

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Link:
Wall BOE settles with former HS teacher over Trump yearbook censorship - Asbury Park Press