Racist Video Sparks Student Protests at Upstate New York High School

We were telling you about a report involving kids in upstate New York, Albany, accused of making racial slurs. And another group of students also began protesting. But many of the students who protested, the students who said what they considered racist words on camera, on social media or in a private group chat, They felt like they got a slap on the wrist while those who walked out of school protesting received anywhere from three to five days suspension. And we're going to get back to that and check it out with our guest, Charles Adams, who we spoke with. He is a former judge, former law enforcement officer, current attorney. Let's get to Charles Adams. And Charles Adams is here with us, attorney, former judge, law enforcement officer. Charles we saw that video your thoughts first of all and then we'll get into the punishment how it's being handled by the school district and the state of the youth that we're seeing now in 2026 but first of all your thoughts about the video that's disgusting obviously they they had not the best upbringing um you know some kids may have gotten caught in the swirl of it and doing a bad thing but for the most part we we see this over and over again whether it's it's videos of of kids behaving horribly attacking people actual physical violence or kids just saying ugly things for attention uh it's it's really gotten out of control more so on social media you know traditional media platforms kind of pick and choose what they're going to present to the public but those of us that spend any time on twitter or threads or even blue sky which i've never been on tiktok and instagram you see just over and over again just horrible behavior. We're seeing it in France, all over the place. They call it student revolts. It looks to be something more sinister. But these young men were just spewing hate in this environment right now in 2026, where it seems like there is a lot of hate that's swirling around. And Charles, what we've always heard, and you've heard it too, you know, just wait, wait, take some time, let the old generation die off and the new people will take over, New kids will take over, new generation, and we'll be a racism, hate-free environment. Obviously, that's not happening. And you said the kids were possibly raised bad. Is it possible some of them just got caught up in the moment and they see others are doing it and they joined in? I'm just trying to get all perspectives here. Yeah, I mean, I can't speak to their motivations, right? i mean clearly um it has infected them at some level it could have been learned at the home it could have been one of them learned it at the home and and it just kind of spiraled i went to you know in elementary i went to a majority black school um and i remember the first time like i remember the first time i heard the word right it was watching Blazing Saddles with my dad the comedy from the 70s the Mel Brooks comedy that was really a criticism of racism by using racist language and i didn't know what it was and i said i was probably six seven years old too young to be seeing a movie with naked women in it but you know my dad was trying to make up the way we grew up though charles we grew up and i said to my dad what's that word and he was like it's just something we don't say it's a derogatory term for black people we don't say it and that was the end of it until sixth grade i heard a kid it was just a you know just a bread this was 19 let's see sixth grade 11 years old so 1983 and he said it to to a kid Octavius who was being rude to him and he said it back and it just led to this big fight but all of us like this was not in the era where rap music you know had it going and you heard it all the time we were all of us i remember me and my best friend was an african-american kid chris harper we're all just like man what's wrong with you and it just wasn't something that was endemic and of course now we've spent a decade telling people of 15 years and a misunderstanding of critical race theory is you can't be racist to white people so saying ugly things to white people is okay and it's kind of it's just this constant cycle right and then you see this generation i had a young african-american uh athlete explaining to me that all of his white friends say the the n-word with a soft a right which i don't there's no one in my generation my mind blows my mind every time i hear it right and it's you know i mean i remember one time we were at a uh at a function i think it was a birthday party for me and uh there was a latino friend of ours that kept saying it and then a hip-hop artist got irritated about it, right? And so where do you draw the line? Who is it okay for? Who is it not okay for? And that actually plays a much larger role in this because this incident was off campus, but there are a lot of students on campus, there was a walkout and other things, where they are demanding a campus consequence. And they've gotten a limited campus consequence. And the question is, this public school, which is a public entity constrained by the free speech amendment, you know, the free speech clause of the first amendment, can they punish them? And there was actually a very on point case, Mahonoy, kind of like Mahoney, but with an extra O, decided by the United States Supreme Court in 2021. And it was an eight to one decision only clarence thomas dissented right and it was a cheerleader a jv cheerleader saying vulgar ugly things off campus and on snapchat i think and she got removed from the cheerleading team as a result and the supreme court said no you can't do it the free speech clause protects it so it's very different like if it was a private school uh right i remember when my daughter was in high school there was a student who had posted a bunch of stuff about Auschwitz um very anti-semitic stuff um probably joking right and she was off campus but she had an on-campus consequence but that's a private school it's a different situation but you hear you have this public school district and Mahonoy came down and said hey if it's off campus you can only do it if it's language that is specifically like targeting someone like cyber bullying or harassing an individual or led to a disruption, which you could say this led to a disruption from the walkout. But if you look at the holding of Mahonoy, it's probably very difficult to robustly punish these kids. And remember, it has to be content neutral. So then the next time an African-American kid goes online and says the word, you've got to deliver the same punishment. And so I think it's much more difficult from a legal perspective because of the free speech clause and i am a big fan i'm not a free speech absolutist but almost i think this is something where the parents should be delivering the discipline and the community right like you can as students you should shun these kids but again if they learn this racism in the home are the parents going to punish them and really quick charles let's establish what we've seen reported in the news uh where the kids who were seen on videotape after a homecoming event saying the racist word they were given or at least sent home a day and some are calling it a day suspension so they were sent home for a day and the students who protested while at school walking out of school they were on average given from three to five days suspension or in school suspension as a result of their action clearly you're applying the law and for those who on the outside layman out there looking in saying well that's not fair that doesn't seem fair right i mean you have kids especially in school suspension is there anything worse than ISS as a a former person that had been sent to ISS the worst right you get a day off from school if you're not missing you know like when i was in high school if i got a i got suspended my senior year for some comments um not like this but you know i got an argument with somebody um you know i got a day off i was fine with it i was just worried about missing a basketball game right you know i mean it's it's not much of a punishment unless there's an added consequence like you miss a test and it impacts your grade or something um and then to punish these kids who i think you can argue from the school district's vantage well it disrupted class uh but morally why would you as an administrator ever deliver a harsher consequence than the other kids got right i mean these kids were taking a moral principle stance and reject racism and if you want to punish them or you feel like you have to punish them because they walked out of class and it's a violation of the code of conduct why not give them the same day off right Why use a heavier hand? I think these kids that got the day off, I think they've got a legitimate free speech argument that the school district is not allowed to punish them for these ugly words. But, of course, who's going to spend a bunch of money on lawyers, right? And who's going to stand behind these kids? These kids should take their medicine. They should apologize for the behavior. I think we're almost existing in this post-apology America where no one wants to say sorry, right? You look at Katie Slotnick and her comments about conservatives coming out of college working for the Trump administration. She's got all kinds of excuses. She should just say sorry, right? These kids did a much worse thing. They should just say, they should go to their peers and say, hey, I'm sorry. We were just playing around. We didn't mean anything. We did not appreciate the scope of the impact. Because that's my issue with the word, right? um i i think that it's it's not about saying because i'll be for instance you know when when i am riding around with a specific friend of mine who was a famous musician and not Bun B you have a few you have a few but he's in his music he uses a lot of that word right and when we're riding around in his Bentley uh listening to it and i am spitting along because i got great flow right i mean i mean ask J Mac i beat him in the one contest but uh the you know i self-sensor i don't say the word because it's not about for me it's about how it would impact other people seeing this bald giant white dude say the word right and my buddy's like yeah man you can say it man you gotta pass and i'm like man i appreciate that you feel that way about me but it's not just about you hearing it it's about what if someone was you know we pulled up to a light and some 12 year old heard me and how it would make them feel. And that's why I think white people generally should not use the word. I also don't think other races should use racial pejoratives. I, you know, we have that argument me and Quadnella lot I agree with you 100%. I mean, what does Quadnell call me a mayonnaise man or a napkin boy? I mean, all kinds of crazy stuff that I don't even know. Right. But I just think all of it should be something that we, we look at, but clearly it is very different from an african-american perspective than it is from a white perspective somebody uses a racial slur against me okay well good don't like i'm glad i know you don't like me go to hell right but there is of course the weight in in the history of it in the context that it's used right which is like we talked about how this younger generation gen alpha it seems like everyone just uses it a lot of people use it as this term of endearment with it and they they they parse it with the soft a versus the er which, you know, I don't see that wasn't our gen, like we witnessed, we're roughly the same age, right? And we witnessed the the growth of the use of it by African Americans, right? Like when when we were kids, it was just an ugly word that people didn't say, except and I know like in Louisiana it was different. Probably white people use it probably a lot more frequently in Louisiana I didn't move to Louisiana until the second half of high school and I was shocked at the usage of it because in Austin, Texas, you just didn't ever hear anyone say it but I think that we witnessed the growth of it usually through gangster rap right the late 80s, early 90s as NWA became the driving force in popular music, you saw just and it's, it hasn't, it's gone, it's just gotten worse and worse and worse, the point now where I think it's infecting all of the culture but it doesn't seem like those kids were using it that way they sounded like it to me, it sounded like they were just being hateful yeah and joyful about the hate and and that just speaks to this environment of division where you know we were, you know, it really we've spent a decade now pointing the finger at blame at races and demographics and genders and orientations instead of treating people like individuals and it just goes back to my personal hate path right because there's people I hate, right I hate individuals for their individual action, right and and I feel the same way about you know I love you, like I love you, I'd say it, right? I didn't say happy birthday the other day, thank you welcome the next day i was all i was like man i'll text them a belated birthday but then i'm clowning i mean i felt bad because because you're somebody that you know you're somebody of you as a close friend and we should all be looking at people based on their actions and our perceptions of their soul as opposed to oh i hate you because you're a republican i hate you because you're a democrat i hate you because you're gay i hate you because you're straight and that's just i mean this is the america we have right i mean when we're looking at looking at this election that's coming up right so many hate mongers right probably more on the right than the left but There's so many on both sides of it. And we're platforming. Those are the new American heroes. So who knows how bad it's going to get. It's really sad. And I think these kids are a reflection of that. We've got to change it, do what we can with the time, the little time we have left. All right, sir, well, good talking to you. And you need to come see us more here on The Factor and The Factor Primetime because we miss you. And I've got your own fancy show. You just don't have the time. All my life I had to fight. Charles, call me Adam would be a battle He acting like you ain't called me in a minute and asked me to do something. I always say yes. Don't listen to him, audience. He's front. The producer thinks I'm too pretty to be on the air. There you go. All right, Charles. Good to see you. Charles Adams, attorney here in Houston. And, of course, Austin, former judge, former law enforcement officer. Glad to see you, sir. Thank you for having me, sir.