A Perry High School mother who has actively protested an incident at the school involving President Donald Trump's Make America Great Again gear has a tie to a racist Snapchat video that came out last year.

Jennifer Farris took a video of her encounter with Perry High School Principal Dan Serrano on Friday when she demanded answers on why students were asked to leave the campus after pulling out a Trump banner.

Farris was asked to leave campus to de-escalate the situation, according to school officials.

This was not Farris' first encounter with officials in the Chandler Unified School District. A video circulated on social media last year that shows several students chanting racist lyrics to a rap song was shot at Farris' home. The video posted on Snapchat caused an uproar among parents, who demanded the students be punished.

The district did not punish the students because the incident happened off school grounds.

Farris told The Arizona Republic Tuesday that while the video was shot at her home, her children weren’t involved and it was unrelated to Friday's encounter.

“They have nothing to do with each other. The kids that were in that video are not the same kids that were supporting the president last week," she said. "This was a bunch of young, stupid, dumb kids singing a song that they shouldn't have been singing. It just so happened that this happened at this house but that doesn't mean we were involved."

MAGA gear led to exchange at school Friday

Farris' ties to both controversies come as some question the presence of MAGA gear in schools.

Roy Tatem, president of the East Valley NAACP, said the slogan has been embraced by far-right supporters of the president and has been used as a "racist dog whistle."

"While it’s not illegal for someone to wear the hat or chant the slogan, and yes, people do have their right to freedom of speech and I believe in that, it can create a hostile environment knowing what it also represents," he said.

MORE: Perry High School students' MAGA gear incident: Here's what we know

Students from Perry say classmates often wear MAGA gear and political attire representing all sides of the political spectrum without censorship. Court rulings lay out that students have First Amendment rights to political speech, so long as it doesn't disrupt or create disorder in school, or invade the rights of other students.

But Friday's "Party in the USA" spirit day led to an altercation between students during lunch that involved the teens wearing MAGA attire and carrying a Trump banner, district officials say.

The students were asked to put the banner away, although they were not required to change their attire, district officials say.

The principal has said it was about safety, not stifling political viewpoints.

But Farris and others question whether the students were targeted for their political beliefs.

The Snapchat video

As for last year's controversy with the video, Farris said she doesn’t condone the song’s racist lyrics, and while she feels that the incident was portrayed unfairly, she said she understands why other parents were upset.

“I do understand that it can be offensive, but that’s not the way it was intended,” she said.

The video posted to Snapchat showed Santan Junior High School students jumping and chanting, "(Expletive) all N-----s" in unison.

The song the students were singing along with was a parody rap song that leads with a lyric celebrating the death of Martin Luther King Jr., and recounts numerous racist stereotypes.

Farris said she was not at home at the time the video was taken. She said her children were not in the video, but rather it was friends they'd invited to the house during the long MLK Day weekend.

“(One of the girls) went in there, grabbed her phone and was taking videos of the kids to be like, ‘Look how dumb these boys are being.’ It just so happened to be that they were jumping up and down and singing that particular song,” she said.

Farris said she was unaware of the video until it went viral and created a stir. A crowd of parents showed up to a school board meeting to call for action.

The school and district ultimately chose not to punish the students, telling parents there was no legal precedent for them to step in.

"The administration denounces the speech as offensive and ignorant," Principal Barbara Kowalinski wrote at the time. "But the administration found no evidence that the speech was intended to threaten the school community or to reach the school campus."

Restoring harm in the district

Janelle Wood with the Black Mothers Forum was one of several parents who pressed the district to take action after last year's Snapchat video, both in disciplining the students and building greater cultural awareness.

"Had we had more restorative practices in place last year in Chandler with the young people involved in that incident and the way it was handled in the district, we probably wouldn’t have had this playing out today," Wood said.

Wood said she doesn't know what drove the students in the latest controversy at Perry. However, she would like to see the district do a better job of teaching students how to express disagreements and debate diverse views.

Districts that don't administer consequences for bad behavior can embolden that type of behavior to occur again, Wood said.

"We need to do a better job of educating our children about each other and helping them understand that we’re all human beings with desires and dreams," Wood said.

Reach reporter Lorraine Longhi at llonghi@gannett.com or 480-243-4086. Follow her on Twitter: @lolonghi.

Reach reporter Paulina Pineda at paulina.pineda@azcentral.com or 602-444-8130. Follow her on Twitter: @paulinapineda22.

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