Senator says Pennsylvania bus driver had ‘God-given’ right to wear MAGA hat

ADAMS COUNTY, Pa. (WHP) — Senator Doug Mastriano (R-Pa.) has released a statement addressing a former school bus driver in Littlestown, Pennsylvania who left his job after he claimed he was given an ultimatum for wearing a ‘Make America Great Again’ hat on his bus.

The treatment of Littlestown bus driver Dave Bonhoff should outrage every Pennsylvanian who believes in liberty, fairness and the constitutional freedoms that define our nation.

Dave Bonhoff, a retired Baltimore County police officer, stepped away from driving for the Littlestown Area School District after he received a call from his boss at Krise Transportation informing him that one of the students had complained about his hat.

She contacts me and says, ‘Hey, listen, I’m going to buy you a hat, an American flag hat, because the school district has deemed that they don’t want you to wear that ‘Make America Great Again’ hat,” Bonhoff said.

Bonhoff left the company the same day.

Mastriano said in a statement Friday that political correctness has become a “tool of intimidation.”

Mr. Bonhoff is a retired police officer who continued serving his community by safely transporting children to school. Yet he was effectively forced out of his job because he wore a hat that read ‘Make America Great Again.’ Whether someone agrees with that message is completely irrelevant. In America, citizens do not lose their First Amendment rights simply because someone else claims to be offended.

What happened here is not about ‘sensitivity’ or ‘respect.’ It is about the suffocating culture of political correctness that is spreading through our institutions — a culture that demands conformity, punishes dissent and attempts to silence anyone who refuses to bow to its ideology. Political correctness has become a tool of intimidation. It is used to shame, threaten and drive ordinary Americans out of their jobs and public life simply for expressing views that do not align with the approved narrative. That is not tolerance. That is coercion.

Mastriano said it was brave of Bonhoff to stick to his beliefs, “Dave Bonhoff showed more courage in standing by his principles than many institutions have shown in defending the rights they claim to value. No American should ever be forced to choose between their livelihood and their constitutional freedoms.”

Bonhoff said his hat had nothing to do with political views, “There’s nothing in this hat that says anything about partisanship,” he said. “I think that saying that this hat is political is absurd. It’s patriotic.”

He noted the phrase had been used by both republican and democratic administrations.

Mastriano said wearing political views should be respected on both sides of the party system, as protected by the Constitution.

I stand firmly with Dave Bonhoff and with every Pennsylvanian who refuses to be bullied into silence. Free speech does not exist only for views that are popular or politically fashionable. It exists precisely to protect the right of Americans to speak their minds without fear of retaliation. Freedom of expression is not granted by bureaucrats, administrators or activists. It is a God-given right protected by the Constitution — and it must be defended without apology.