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Florida High School Principal: 'Not Everyone Believes the Holocaust Happened'
Townhall.com ^ | July 7, 2019 | Matt Vespa

Posted on 07/07/2019 4:07:40 AM PDT by Kaslin

There are some things that are just not up for debate. These aren’t political issues. What happened in Florida didn’t center on MAGA hats, flag burning, or the merits of tax cuts. We actually had a high school principal question whether the Holocaust was a “historical, factual” event. The Palm Beach Post has the story. A mother of a student tried for a year to reason with the school administration to, you know, actually teach kids about this terrible period in human history without the nonsense. She wondered how this was being taught at the school. The emails between the parent and Spanish River High School Principal William Latson were released and, well, it was not very good. Latson has since apologized for the wording in these emails, with the school district’s deputy schools superintendent saying that Latson was “counseled” on the exchanges, but not formally reprimanded. Now, Latson is not a Holocaust denier, but this nonsensical two sides position he took about this issue is a bit disturbing. There is no ‘two sides argument’ concerning the Holocaust (via Palm Beach Post):

A mother pushed for a year to address what she described as a school leader’s failure to separate truth from myth.

She sent off the email with few expectations — a routine question seeking a routine answer. How, the mother wondered, was the Holocaust being taught at Spanish River High School?

She wanted to make sure, she wrote to the principal, that her child’s school was making Holocaust education “a priority.” The response she received five days later, in April 2018, was anything but routine.

In an email reply, Principal William Latson assured her that the school had “a variety of activities” for Holocaust education.

But he explained that the lessons are “not forced upon individuals as we all have the same rights but not all the same beliefs.”

The mother, who asked not to be named to protect her child’s identity, was stunned. Was the principal of one of Palm Beach County’s largest public schools suggesting that the Holocaust was a belief rather than an actual event?

Thinking Latson simply had expressed himself poorly, she wrote back, asking him to clarify his comments. “The Holocaust is a factual, historical event,” she wrote. “It is not a right or a belief.”

She expected a chastened response. Instead, the veteran principal doubled down.

“Not everyone believes the Holocaust happened,” he wrote, according to email records obtained by The Palm Beach Post through a public records request. “And you have your thoughts, but we are a public school and not all of our parents have the same beliefs.”

He went on to say that as an educator he had “the role to be politically neutral but support all groups in the school.”

“I can’t say the Holocaust is a factual, historical event because I am not in a position to do so as a school district employee,” Latson wrote.

[…]

She didn’t doubt that Latson knew the Holocaust was real, she said in an interview, but she feared his reluctance to say so stemmed from a desire to avoid confronting parents who deny the Holocaust’s reality.

The publication adds that the other pushed for the mandatory reading of Elie Wiesel’s “Night “ for sophomores, along with assemblies on the Holocaust. The first suggestion was honored, but the assemblies were not held due to “time constraints.”

Maybe this is an unforced error. No, it was. Who cares about catering to the “holocaust denier” crowd? The point of an educator is that you don’t even dabble or give the myth-peddling crowd any platform or the light of day for that matter, especially on issues like the Holocaust. This is a ‘Florida man’ story for sure, those often humorous and often insane local stories from the Sunshine State, but this one takes a very dark turn indeed.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Israel; US: Florida; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: education; florida; holocaust; holocaustdenial; holocaustdenier; islamofascism; islamofascists; israel; jerusalem; letshavejerusalem; lindasarsour; louisfarrakhan; nationofislam; palmbeach; publicschools; spanishriverhigh; spanishriverhs; theholocaust; waronterror; williamlatson; womensmarch; ww2
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1 posted on 07/07/2019 4:07:40 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Again, this is why democracy does not work. Most people are just too ignorant to be worthy to self govern. It is also why the founding fathers created a Constitutional Republic which is no where near close to a pure democracy.

JoMa


2 posted on 07/07/2019 4:10:24 AM PDT by joma89
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To: Kaslin

Not everyone believes there was slavery in the US....
Two sides etc.....


3 posted on 07/07/2019 4:17:58 AM PDT by Kozak (DIVERSITY+PROXIMITY=CONFLICT)
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To: joma89

I know a large and very conservative Evangelical church there......wait till this gets disseminated to them!


4 posted on 07/07/2019 4:19:22 AM PDT by Guenevere
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To: Kaslin

“In fifty years some son of bitch is going to say this never happened.”

- Dwight Eisenhower explaining why he had the Army Signal Corps film what the Army had found in the death camps.


5 posted on 07/07/2019 4:19:35 AM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets ( Schumer delenda est.)
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To: Kaslin

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the modern day profession of academic administration.


6 posted on 07/07/2019 4:20:36 AM PDT by Ouchthatonehurt
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To: Kaslin

“I can’t say the Holocaust is a factual, historical event because I am not in a position to do so as a school district employee,” Latson wrote.”

One is entitled to ones own beliefs. One is not entitled to ones own facts.

See my tag line.

L


7 posted on 07/07/2019 4:22:49 AM PDT by Lurker (Peaceful coexistence with the Left is not possible. Stop pretending that it is.)
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To: Kaslin

Knowing vs Believing

It honestly does not matter if you believe ot or not.

It happened - Even the perpetrators admitted as much - It simply does not mater if you believe it or not. If you don’t believe then you are WRONG.

Wise up S**tbag (Spoken to the principal not the poster)


8 posted on 07/07/2019 4:23:02 AM PDT by Fai Mao (There is no rule of law in the US until The PIAPS is executed.)
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To: Kaslin

And not everyone believes that men and women are distinct and non-interchangeable.

What alternate beliefs are tolerated only at the margin and what are mainstream says a great deal about a society.

Beliefs that are best marginal in other cultures and standards of orthodoxy in others define the culture.

The root of culture is cult (remove the last three letters from culture), cultic behaviour being behaviour that seems ritualistic and artificial from outside the group but inside the group is important and part of what defines belonging and participating in the highest way. Some thinking will go well with the behaviour, other thinking will be close to incompatible. That which goes well is “Right belief” “ortho dox”


9 posted on 07/07/2019 4:24:01 AM PDT by Hieronymus ("I shall drink--to the Pope, if you please,-still, to Conscience first, and to the Pope afterwards.")
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To: Ouchthatonehurt

“...Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the modern day profession of academic administration....”
Yep. Destroyed by liberalism. Liberalism destroys everything it touches...EVERYTHING, but primarily education. They especially LOVE destroying education.


10 posted on 07/07/2019 4:24:37 AM PDT by lgjhn23 (It's easy to be liberal when you're dumber than a box of rocks.)
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To: Guenevere

Boca Ratón has a significant Jewish population. I am sure they will have a word or two for the school board as well.


11 posted on 07/07/2019 4:28:35 AM PDT by sipow
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To: Kaslin

Everyone doesn’t believe in slavery
Everyone doesn’t believe in transgenderism
Everyone doesn’t believe gays were born that way
Etc


12 posted on 07/07/2019 4:29:34 AM PDT by AppyPappy (How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?)
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To: Lurker

Your tag line is a fact.


13 posted on 07/07/2019 4:34:00 AM PDT by sipow
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To: Kaslin

Does he also claim that the earth may be round and may be flat?


14 posted on 07/07/2019 4:35:39 AM PDT by DuncanWaring (The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
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To: Kaslin

Read later.


15 posted on 07/07/2019 4:37:15 AM PDT by NetAddicted (Just looking)
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To: AppyPappy

Muslims are big holocaust deniers... the article doesn’t say which parents didn’t believe the hlocaust didn’t happen


16 posted on 07/07/2019 4:42:48 AM PDT by willyd (I for one welcome our NSA overlords)
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To: Kaslin

Not only does a sizable number of people believe man never went to the moon, but they have invested a good deal of time and energy to “prove” it.


17 posted on 07/07/2019 4:43:10 AM PDT by C210N (You can vote your way into Socialism; but, you have to shoot your way out of it.)
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To: AppyPappy
Everyone doesn’t believe in slavery
Everyone doesn’t believe in transgenderism
Everyone doesn’t believe gays were born that way
Etc

Not everyone believes the earth is round...
Not everyone believes men walked on the moon.
Not everyone believes Q is real.
Etc.

🤪

(see what I did there?)


18 posted on 07/07/2019 4:46:29 AM PDT by bagster ("Even bad men love their mamas".)
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To: Kaslin
Those who deny the Holocaust don't really deny it, they just want to call it something else -- a little like Rep. Omar saying, on 9/11 "some people did something".

Riiiiiiiiight.


19 posted on 07/07/2019 4:48:21 AM PDT by BroJoeK ((a little historical perspective...))
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To: Kaslin

In highschool we watched film of emaciated bodies stacked like cordwood.
Of mountains of shoes and eyeglasses.
Of soldiers bulldozing boney naked bodies into ditches because there were just too many to dig graves.
You could argue about the ‘why’ I suppose but not the ‘if.’
It’s not a rumour.
It’s not just what was reported.
There’s film.


20 posted on 07/07/2019 4:48:22 AM PDT by servo1969
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