HOLMDEL, NJ — They say revenge is best served cold. Well, for this Holmdel teenager, revenge on his high school is best served in the form of a photo-op alongside Donald Trump.
Boris Kizenko, 16, is the Holmdel High School junior who said earlier this winter he was excluded from the National Honor Society due to his support for President Trump. School administrators disagreed; the teen said they told him he was barred from entry into the prestigious group due to a “character” issue.
After Kizenko was interviewed on FOX News, NJ 101.5 and elsewhere, the Trump White House got wind of the debate. Kizenko was invited to the Rose Garden this Thursday, March 21 to hear the President give an address about higher education, the teen says. A White House official confirmed that Kizenko was indeed invited to Thursday’s event.
Since January, Kizenko has also gotten heavily involved in Turning Point USA, a conservative political organization. But he never thought he’d be invited to meet Trump personally.
“I was actually out on a date with a girl, and I got a text from a friend who’s also in Turning Point. He’s the chapter president for Turning Point USA at Rider University,” Kizenko told Patch. “He said he was invited to the White House Thursday, as well, and he said check your spam folder, maybe I was invited, too. Sure enough, I checked, and there was an invitation to the White House.”
Kizenko said he, understandably, jumped at the chance.
“I just hope Holmdel will count this as an excused absence,” said Kizenko. “Kids get to go to Six Flags and miss a day at school so …”
This Thursday, Trump will speak at 3 p.m. in the Rose Garden about the importance of freedom of speech on college campuses. Kizenko said he believes he will have the opportunity to meet and take a photo alongside the president.
“I hope what he’s saying will trickle down to the high school level. When you’re young, it’s important to be able to express and formulate your ideas yourself, instead of getting the regurgitated left-wing ideology that we often see in schools,” said Kizenko. “After I got all this media attention, I started meeting students all over the country who had gone through something similar. Someone in Arizona reached out to me and said they were suspended for 10 days for wearing a MAGA sweatshirt on ‘Party in the USA Day’ at their high school.”
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As Patch reported, Kizenko has clashed with Holmdel High administration at least two times: The first was last year when, as sophomore class president, he was told by a teacher to take down an inspirational quote he had posted on the school’s Instagram account. The quote accompanied a photo of Trump and read: “If you’re going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big.”
Even though he posted quotes every day “from Marcus Aurelius to Yoda to Drake,” Kizenko said the teacher made him take the post down and then took away his social media authority.
“(They) demanded my password … They told me that I was being a ‘monarch’ in the Student Council and said that (quote) doesn’t represent the ideals of the class,” Kizenko told NJ 101.5.
He said he appealed the teacher’s decision, which resulted in a “conduct report” being filed on him.
Then when he ran for reelection last year, to keep his position as class president, Kizenko made T-shirts and hats that read “Make Holmdel Great Again.” He said school administration reprimanded him for it, calling the shirts “propaganda.” (He did not win the reelection bid.)
Those are the two incidents that Kizenko said Holmdel High principal Brian Schillaci told him were the reason why he was not admitted into the National Honor Society. The teenager declined to comment further when Patch asked if he had ever had any other disciplinary issues at the school before.
“The principal said that making the ‘Make Holmdel Great Again’ shirts and posting the Trump quote was indicative of a character and leadership flaw on my part,” Kizenko told Patch. “I will not be commenting further on this issue.”
The superintendent of Holmdel public schools, Robert McGarry, disagrees with Kizenko’s take on the situation.
He said a student’s political affiliation is never a factor into whether or not they are accepted into the National Honor Society. Students apply via this website, and faculty at Holmdel High make the determination into whether they are ultimately accepted. Criteria includes having at least a 3.66 GPA, “a determination of character, being a student in good standing and demonstrated leadership,” as well as community service hours.
But McGarry also previously declined to comment further about Kizenko, saying he was barred by privacy laws from discussing a student’s disciplinary history.
Kizenko will return to Washington, D.C. this summer, where he has an internship with the Leadership Institute. And he’ll be applying to colleges soon. Even without the National Honor Society on his resume, he lists Harvard, Georgetown and Princeton as his dream schools.
Kizenko identifies a lot with the Covington, Kentucky students who got into an encounter with Native American protesters on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
“You hear Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez saying we need to resist this conservative establishment, but now today it’s actually conservative students who are being discriminated against for their political beliefs,” said the teen. “And you see people on the left having to make up hate crimes to fit their narrative. We are just conservative students who believe in traditional values and support our president. And we are getting hated on.”
Past reporting: Holmdel Student: Supporting Trump Excluded Me From Honor Society