A 70-year-old Sutter Middle School teacher, Woody Hart, in Folsom, CA teacher hung a Confederate flag and a Union flag during his lesson on the Civil War and due to political correctness, was forced to resign.
The flag, which was removed before class began, was going to be used, along with the Union flag, for a history lesson, according to a district post on Facebook but a group called, Showing Up for Racial Justice, who shares the values of Alicia Garza, co-founder Black Lives Matter in which Garza has stated, “We need you defecting from White supremacy and changing the narrative of White supremacy by breaking White silence.”
News of the 70-year old teacher being forced to retire was reported by the Sacramento Bee.
A teacher who displayed the Confederate flag to middle schoolers in his history class was forced to retire amid concerns that he was displaying a symbol of hate.
“He will not be returning to the classroom,” Zak Ford, the school board president, said at Thursday night’s board meeting, which was heavily attended by supporters and critics of Sutter Middle School teacher Woody Hart. Ford said the board had accepted Hart’s retirement.
The announcement was greeted with a mix of boos and cheers. One man in the audience yelled, “Coward.”
District officials said they were notified Tuesday that Hart had hung a Confederate flag in his classroom. The flag was across the room from a Civil War Union flag.
“We recognize that regardless of context, to many of our students, families, and staff, the Confederate flag is a racist symbol of hate,” said the district’s statement.
The family of a black Folsom student filed a complaint in November after the history teacher used a lynching analogy to explain how states treat individuals under the U.S. Constitution.
Hart, 70, was apologetic in an interview after the hanging analogy became public. He said he made the comparison because he was trying to make the discussion “interesting” and express something that would catch students’ attention.
In that instance, he was trying to make an academic argument that states have to treat individuals from outside a state the same way they treat their own residents.
Not everyone agreed with the school’s decision and the teacher’s decision to retire.
One parent stated, “This teacher is the most passionate history teacher there is. My daughter hated history and by the end of a year with him, she loved it and says it was the way he taught. I’m sorry but the flag is a part of history and probably being used for a lesson, oh yeah, about history. Should we remove all teachings about WWII because teachers bring in items to use as props as well? I mean we don’t want to a fend anyone with that either. Let’s remember that this is a History class where you learn about History.”
Another parent stated, “History is not politically correct! He hung up a historical flag along with its counterpart in a classroom where he is teaching history! Children should be educated in the good history and the bad or we are doomed to repeat it! If we pick and choose history, what we put in our textbooks how are we then not like the communist countries, the tyrannical countries that edit their history so that their citizens only know what they are fed?”
A Obama supporter liberal educator chimed in and said in part, “As an educator, I can speak from experience when I say there are many, many ways to make a lesson engaging, meaningful and fun for students without alienating or offending a single one. I will echo previous comments stating that hanging a Confederate flag in your classroom, particularly after defining equality the way this teacher did, is unacceptable. For that reason, he doesn’t belong in a classroom.”
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