Selena McKnight is an academic counselor at Olentangy High School in Lewis Center, Ohio — a suburb about 30 minutes from Columbus. Her job, funded by taxpayers, is to help students navigate their education. Course selection. College applications. Academic planning. The kind of guidance that parents trust schools to provide because it’s supposed to be neutral, professional, and focused on the student’s future.
On February 12th, McKnight was photographed at a student walkout holding a sign that read: “You can’t love God and ICE.”
She was standing alongside students. At a school event. During school hours. Holding a sign that tells children their faith is incompatible with federal law enforcement.
That’s not academic counseling. That’s political activism conducted on school property, on the taxpayer’s dime, using a position of authority over minors to advance an ideological agenda. And the school district’s response was to pretend it didn’t happen.
The Sign
The sign references Exodus 22:21: “Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt.” It’s a verse that progressive Christians have repurposed as a blanket prohibition on immigration enforcement — stripping it of its historical context, its theological framework, and any honest reading of what it actually says.
The verse is about hospitality and justice in the treatment of foreigners living among the Israelites. It’s not about open borders. It’s not about abolishing law enforcement. And it certainly isn’t a theological argument that loving God requires opposing a federal agency tasked with enforcing immigration law.
But McKnight didn’t bring a Bible to the walkout for a theology seminar. She brought a sign. A political sign. At a school. With students. And the message wasn’t subtle: if you support ICE, you can’t love God. If your parents support immigration enforcement, they’re in conflict with Scripture. If you’re a student who thinks the law should be enforced, your faith is deficient.
That’s the message a taxpayer-funded school counselor delivered to children she’s supposed to be advising.
The Walkout
The school district told Fox News Digital that the event was “a student-led, voluntary walkout” that was “not organized, sponsored, or sanctioned by the school or district.” They added that “school staff did not participate in the walkout.”
School staff did not participate. Except for the academic counselor photographed holding a sign alongside students at the walkout. That, apparently, doesn’t count as participation in whatever definition the Olentangy school district is using.
Other signs at the event included “Fight ignorance, not immigrants,” “Stop the violence,” and “Hard 2B persistent when you tryin to fight for your existence.” The messaging was coordinated, the signs were prepared, and an adult employee of the school was present, holding her own sign, standing with students.
The district claims staff “are prohibited from engaging in political activity at school or during work-related activities” and that “violations are addressed according to Board policy.” What that addressing looks like — whether McKnight faces any consequence whatsoever — the district didn’t say.
The Counselor’s Influence
Here’s why the counselor detail matters more than the sign itself. A school counselor holds a position of extraordinary influence over students. She’s the person they go to when they’re struggling. When they need help with college applications. When they’re navigating social problems. When they trust an adult to give them objective guidance.
When that adult shows up at a political event holding a sign that declares a religious and moral position on a contentious political issue, the dynamic changes. Students who disagree — students whose parents support ICE, students who believe in immigration enforcement, students whose families are in law enforcement — now know that their counselor holds a political position that’s hostile to their beliefs.
Will those students feel comfortable going to her for help? Will they trust her objectivity? Will they believe she’ll treat them the same as students who share her politics? The answer, for any honest person, is no. The counselor has compromised her professional neutrality in the most public way possible — on camera, with a sign, standing with the students she’s supposed to serve impartially.
Jack Windsor of The Ohio Press Network reported that the walkout divided students and made some uncomfortable. Of course it did. Because when adults inject politics into a school environment and make it clear which side they’re on, students who disagree aren’t just uncomfortable. They’re silenced. They learn very quickly that their views aren’t welcome — not from their peers, but from the adults in authority.
The Escalating Pattern
This isn’t an isolated incident. Anti-ICE walkouts have been spreading through schools across the country, often with staff involvement that districts later deny or minimize. A viral video showed anti-ICE walkout students invading a Kroger and hurling objects — behavior that one commentator said “ought to be prosecuted.”
Meanwhile, ICE reports a 1,300% increase in assaults on its officers, a 3,200% increase in vehicle attacks aimed at agents, and an 8,000% increase in death threats. The rhetoric that frames ICE as morally incompatible with faith, with decency, with basic humanity — the rhetoric on McKnight’s sign — contributes directly to an environment where federal law enforcement officers are being attacked at rates that would be considered a crisis in any other context.
When a school counselor tells students that loving God and supporting ICE are mutually exclusive, she’s not making a theological argument. She’s dehumanizing federal agents. She’s teaching children that the people who enforce immigration law are so morally deficient that faith itself rejects them. And she’s doing it from a position of authority, in a school, with minors who trust her judgment.
The Accountability That Won’t Come
Olentangy Schools says violations of their neutrality policy “are addressed according to Board policy.” That’s bureaucratic language for: nothing will happen. McKnight will keep her job. She’ll keep counseling students. And every student who walks into her office will know exactly where she stands politically — and will calibrate their behavior accordingly.
The district had a choice. It could have acknowledged that a staff member violated policy, imposed consequences, and reaffirmed that schools are not venues for political activism by employees. Instead, it issued a statement that simultaneously denied staff participation and promised to address violations — without acknowledging that one of its counselors was photographed doing exactly what the policy prohibits.
An academic counselor at a public school told students that loving God is incompatible with supporting federal law enforcement. She did it on school property, during school hours, while being paid with tax dollars. And the school’s response is that staff “did not participate.”
The photo says otherwise. And the students who saw it will remember what their counselor believes — long after the district forgets it happened.