Teacher Resigns After Parent Complains Pride Flag Is "Personal Agenda"

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SilverBear

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Here you go....



Ask @muichimotsu if he was talking about real kids or hypothetical ones. That's the post I was replying to.
he was talking about marginalized kids. You changed it to kids who are upset at the removal of a flag so you could belittle them.
 
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Ana the Ist

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Directly? It's been a while. Fifth Grade, to be precise.

Freddie Dodds used to love sneaking up behind students and giving them wedgies... but you better believe he cried like a kicked dog all the way to the principal's office when someone who bore a striking resemblance to a young TLK Valentine (if you can imagine someone that handsome), turned around and popped him right in the nose.

Awww...good story. Though I'm not sure wedgies are bullying. It sounds like some light hearted pranking.

1 week of detention, and worth every minute... or so I've heard.

Fighting was an automatic detention at my school.

of course, one can look at various religious or political groups who try to use their influence to bend others to their will... and then howl "persecution!" when the courts rule against them...

I had to reread this 4 or 5 times before I figured out what you were saying....

I don't think religious groups are bullies. They certainly preach their moral code and try to shame those who don't follow it of agree with it....but the political left basically does the exact same thing these days.

I will say that despite many of their members looking down on me for disagreeing with them, they've never gone as far as trying to silence me for disagreeing with them. It didn't matter how wrong they thought I was...they never sought to silence me. If they had done that, I might agree with calling them bullies.
 
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SilverBear

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Yes I would say those people were victims of discrimination and racism. I don't think anyone is saying there hasn't been any it that no one is ever a victim.

What we are saying is just cause there have been victims in the past of racism, doesn't mean the entire race of today are victims of racism. The Jews during Hitler's reign of terror were victims. Today, the Jews are no longer victims of Nazi extermination. They are no longer being exterminated by Germany.

Gay people are not automatically victims of bullying for being gay just cause they are gay. They actually have to face the bullying for being gay before they can claim victimhood.
and they do face it often on a daily basis
 
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Ana the Ist

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he was talking about marginalized kids.

Marginalized just means "victim".

You changed it to kids who are upset at the removal of a flag

He brought them up...not me. Removal of a flag is the topic of the thread.
 
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tall73

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As noted earlier the school has no problem posting things from groups like the ROTC and book companies that have nothing to do with curriculum. our might have a valid point if the school was removing all of these as well,....but they aren't

Agendas being driven by a teacher are different than books which the school promotes or ROTC--another government program.

Would you have a problem with a teacher who put a cross in the classroom to signal his faith, and to encourage Christian students to discuss their faith? That too would be prohibited, because it is pushing a personal agenda.
 
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tall73

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the school didn't

The school didn't comment on that aspect, but on the personal agenda.

Advised but not forbid. The question was why did they advise against it in the first place. It is reasonable to assume it was not about some imagined agenda or the limits of free speech because they could have said all this from the start.

That was his take on it. And the phrasing is interesting:

“I left that meeting with the understanding that they had advised against it but not instructed me not to,” Wallis said.

The school didn't release much info due to it involving personnel decisions. But even based on his take on it the conclusion that they didn't want him to put it up is clear. And that was before any parental complaint, so it was not based on that.

what a horrible agenda, i can see why you are offended by it.

This is the second time you tried to attribute to me things I did not say. I did not say I was offended by the agenda. Nor did the school officials.

They just said it was a personal agenda and didn't belong in the classroom.

I could actually see the value of having someone to go to in order to discuss issues, whether for LGBT students, or Christian students. And I have known teachers who would like to fill that role as well. But they report they are not allowed to put any indication of that.

The irony is that you if you flip through the school's facebook page can see a cross being displayed in the classroom.

Feel free to post the photo to evaluate.

But if it was put up by a teacher without being part of the curriculum that would be a double standard.
 
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tall73

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You don't know it's a personal agenda, first off

We do know it was an agenda because when LGBTQ students sought him out he said it was working as he intended.

and an "agenda" of offering support to minorities without excluding the majority is not some sinister conspiracy

It was not indicated it was sinister. It was indicated that it was a personal agenda unrelated to the class. Just as it would be if a teacher put up a cross for the purpose of signaling he was a Christian, and encouraging Christian students to come to him to discuss living out their faith in school.
 
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tall73

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Pretty sure the religious symbols would fall under a more explicit notion of endorsement, which would violate the establishment clause of the 1st amendment. Voicing support for a minority group is not the same as saying, "Here's my faith group's symbol, I'm your teacher and you can't do anything about it," like a petulant child

This was already adjudicated, and they handled the issues related to free speech and those related to establishment separately, with the establishment portion second.

School districts control teachers’ classroom speech - kappanonline.org

In Johnson v. Poway Unified Sch. Dist. of San Diego County, 658 F.3d 954, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held similarly. There, administrators told a math teacher to remove large banners that displayed religious beliefs from his classroom.

Before they even got to the establishment issue they found the teacher did not have a right to speech related to signs with religious messages when that had nothing to do with the curriculum.

The court ruled against the teacher, finding that inserting his religious views into the curriculum was not protected speech. The court said:

Just as the Constitution would not protect Johnson were he to decide that he no longer wished to teach math at all, preferring to discuss Shakespeare rather than Newton, it does not permit him to speak as freely at work in his role as a teacher about his views on God, our nation’s history, or God’s role in our nation’s history as he might on a sidewalk, in a park, at his dinner table, or in countless other locations.

Again, the school district has the right and responsibility to set the curriculum and, within the delivery of that curriculum, teacher speech can be regulated. 
 
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muichimotsu

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RDKirk said:
Pointing out the strength of one man does not make a disparaging remark about another man.



Pish-posh. That is an absolutely silly idea. What an incredible level of conceit. That's the conceit of white liberals that Malcolm X spoke about.

Oppressed people have always promoted the heroes of their ranks. Do you think we have been downplaying our jointly experienced struggle by cheering our heroes through the years, such as Ralph Bunche, Thurgood Marshall, Mary McLeod Bethune, Richard Allen, Charles Drew?

Every group lauds its heroes, no group thinks that downplays their own struggles. Do you think the military downplays its own soldiers by giving some of them medals for valor?

The purpose is to prove the fact that their group is good enough to have such people among them, and what the heroes can do, others can also so. Heroes are the examples of resistance to oppression, the evidence that oppression can be resisted. If you suppress the recognition of a peoples' heroes, you're suppressing the idea they can resist oppression...only the oppressors themselves do that.



I was in the same group and experiencing the same thing. I experienced the same segregation they experienced. The only difference is that at the moment as a child, I was shielded from the effects they experienced as adults. But as I grew older, I understood better.

The very fortunate thing for me, in a Southern town, is that I had many examples of people who had some success in resisting oppression, who were experiencing some measure of success in life despite Jim Crow. We were near an HBCU and there were many in my neighborhood (a factor of Jim Crow...the well-to-do blacks lived in the same neighborhoods as poorer blacks). Kids growing up in urban areas weren't surrounded by the same examples that surrounded me.

You're calling them self-hating...because they had some success against Jim Crow?

Would you call a woman self-hating if she successfully beat off a would-be rapist?



So you think Jews are self-hating by recognizing their own heroes, from the biblical patriarchs to
Rabbi Meir of Rothhenburg, Ehud Barak, or Yohanan Ben Zakkai?
Wow, complete misrepresentation. I'm not claiming that blacks who acknowledge those successes are internalizing racism, it's when they dismiss the struggles as overreacting or hyperbolizing that they are diminishing and marginalizing their own people.

And a woman beating off a male rapist is hardly self hating because she isn't diminishing women. Now she would be if she suggested that a woman was asking for it because of how she dressed and that woman was a rape victim.

The recognition of success in itself is not the indication of internalized racism, it's suggesting that the failures are a matter of their own issues and not anything systemic, as if everything has to have intent behind it or it doesn't matter or exist. It's a form of delusion I'd coin as anthropocentric in some form, not sure what the prefix would be in the Greek to indicate something that specific for intentionality, but apply that and you've got a start at least, if it doesn't already exist in psychology
 
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muichimotsu

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We do know it was an agenda because when LGBTQ students sought him out he said it was working as he intended.



It was not indicated it was sinister. It was indicated that it was a personal agenda unrelated to the class. Just as it would be if a teacher put up a cross for the purpose of signaling he was a Christian, and encouraging Christian students to come to him to discuss living out their faith in school.
Oh no, not a minority group asking for support from a teacher they didn't even necessarily know was gay and shouldn't be assumed as some bias against straight children who might not be straight and struggling with aspects of their sexuality or such. How awful to be a supportive teacher, call the unions!

Not remotely comparable, because faith is a choice, you don't choose your attractions or your gender identity, you act them out in behavior and the like, which is not always doable in a repressive society that treats you like a freak if you differ from a heterocisnormative hegemony
 
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muichimotsu

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This was already adjudicated, and they handled the issues related to free speech and those related to establishment separately, with the establishment portion second.

School districts control teachers’ classroom speech - kappanonline.org

In Johnson v. Poway Unified Sch. Dist. of San Diego County, 658 F.3d 954, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held similarly. There, administrators told a math teacher to remove large banners that displayed religious beliefs from his classroom.

Before they even got to the establishment issue they found the teacher did not have a right to speech related to signs with religious messages when that had nothing to do with the curriculum.

The court ruled against the teacher, finding that inserting his religious views into the curriculum was not protected speech. The court said:

Just as the Constitution would not protect Johnson were he to decide that he no longer wished to teach math at all, preferring to discuss Shakespeare rather than Newton, it does not permit him to speak as freely at work in his role as a teacher about his views on God, our nation’s history, or God’s role in our nation’s history as he might on a sidewalk, in a park, at his dinner table, or in countless other locations.

Again, the school district has the right and responsibility to set the curriculum and, within the delivery of that curriculum, teacher speech can be regulated. 

Problem is not all speech is the same, you're treating it with a broad brush and that's not even rational in terms of jurisprudence, let alone interactions overall, because it oversimplifies
 
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muichimotsu

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I haven't read all 19 pages, but what I would want to know why ANY political or religious flag or any other flag (besides the U.S. and state flag) are on display in a public school classroom?
Not sure why you think even the country and state flag are necessary. Are you going to claim kids need that now or is that skirting too close to nationalism in your subconscious and you realize that a symbol in itself is not necessarily neutral merely because it purports to be unifying versus one that is virtually without controversy (a rainbow flag!)
 
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muichimotsu

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Which is why the flags and shows of support belong in the teacher's office, as I said. Like it or not, the pride flag is a political symbol, and the classroom itself must be politically neutral (except for the obligatory US flag) if at all possible.

After all, even the most passionately anti-lgbt students deserve an education... goodness knows they could use one.
Is it though? That's like someone trying to say the American flag isn't political by making an exception rooted in nationalism that plays favorites due to tradition and not considering that unity is not achieved by petty squabbles rooted in exclusion based on how one might not necessarily appreciate the American flag's implicit message in terms of the nation being founded on slave labor, that blacks were 3/5 of a person, etc

A rainbow flag is not excluding anyone, even the American flag is saying that your ethnic heritage otherwise might as well not matter versus the idea that we keep hearing about a melting pot (though not as much anymore except in the assimilation tactic)
 
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tall73

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Oh no, not a minority group asking for support from a teacher they didn't even necessarily know was gay and shouldn't be assumed as some bias against straight children who might not be straight and struggling with aspects of their sexuality or such. How awful to be a supportive teacher, call the unions!

Your "oh no" statements are irrelevant. Your thoughts about our attitudes are irrelevant. In fact, if you had read a few posts up I think a teacher supporting LGBTQ students might be helpful to them. But it is also a personal agenda not within his assigned duties. He was hired by the government for his speech, regarding the curriculum.

I also know teachers who would like to talk to students about their faith. But they are not able to signal that either. Because it is a personal agenda outside of the curriculum.

Not remotely comparable, because faith is a choice, you don't choose your attractions or your gender identity, you act them out in behavior and the like, which is not always doable in a repressive society that treats you like a freak if you differ from a heterocisnormative hegemony

It is comparable in that neither are the curriculum. They are a personal agenda apart from what he has been hired to do.
 
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tall73

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Problem is not all speech is the same, you're treating it with a broad brush and that's not even rational in terms of jurisprudence, let alone interactions overall, because it oversimplifies

I am not the court. They decided it. You can go read the case if you like. They stated the school controls the speech of the teacher. That is directly applicable to this case.
 
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muichimotsu

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The flag is indeed a symbol of an interpretation of a spectrum of sexuality even if it's also a symbol of inclusion. The thing with symbols is we don't get to force people how they recieve them. Someone may put a flag of a hammer and sickle up but they shouldn't be surprised when it's interpreted as a communist message even if that's not the intent. If the teacher did not intent to carry a sexual message and by that I include sexual orientation and identity, then he should have chosen a different symbol.

To me this feels like a personal cause otherwise why would he take such a extreme response? It's an unusual thing to put up that flag outside of a personal cause as the symbol itself is not widely accepted as a message of acceptance void of a message of sexuality. The response of the parents would seem to show that pretty clearly.

I also didn't read the article and made assumptions from the headline/op which I felt summerised it adequately but thanks for correcting me however the point is still the same. The intended message he possibly was trying to support was interpreted differently and so the message was corrupted. He choose to fight for the symbol as it is rather than work with the parents on a different symbol that represents the same values he wanted to demonstrate. And ironicly this was a message of inclusion... apparently with exceptions.
Pretty sure it's not purely sexuality based, that's demonstrable in covering gender identity as well as romantic attraction (because you can be romantically attracted to someone without a shred of sexual attraction, they're not the same remotely or even interconnected)

Your mistaken assumption is not his problem if someone else, myself include,d points out it is not purely about this subject you seem to think is taboo to even discuss with children when that's the age range where you start having sexual health classes and that would mean having the rainbow flag in that class within a context where the teacher was teaching that would be, by your logic, perfectly acceptable and without controversy except by prejudice.

You think most people aren't going to interpret the rainbow flag as an inclusive message because you bring up this one anecdotal message from a parent that seems to not be able to understand that sexual orientation is not talking about sexual acts or such, plus you can't just make someone gay anyway, that's outdated tripe.

So someone's interpretation trumps any intent of the original person? We can't have dialogue anymore, just assume something and walk all over someone because they're a "servant"?

The message was inclusion, the school didn't go along with that, so they exercised the freedom to quit. You act like they were going to put a bomb threat on the school to get their way, they left.
 
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muichimotsu

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Your "oh no" statements are irrelevant. Your thoughts about our attitudes are irrelevant. In fact, if you had read a few posts up I think a teacher supporting LGBTQ students might be helpful to them. But it is also a personal agenda not within his assigned duties. He was hired by the government for his speech, regarding the curriculum.

I also know teachers who would like to talk to students about their faith. But they are not able to signal that either. Because it is a personal agenda outside of the curriculum.



It is comparable in that neither are the curriculum. They are a personal agenda apart from what he has been hired to do.
Can you not detect even a shred of sarcasm? That was the intent, it's sad I have to point this out

Teacher can do both actually, just not in class time, that's where the extracurricular aspects would come in.

The school acts like this teacher was being malicious and conniving, to secretly influence students even if all they had was the All are Welcome sign, minus the rainbow flag and then brought up LGBTQ students and supporting them and then moved into class proper without any further ado.

If the scenario only differed in that respect, I'd almost bet money some busybody would still complain the same about this and the teacher would still quit because these pearl clutching zealots can't nuance between support of students and paranoid accusations of pederasty.
 
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