Posted on 12/06/2021 3:51:14 PM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
KINGSPORT, Tenn. - Matthew Hawn checked his phone to see if the wait was finally over.
It had been five months since he was fired for teaching about White privilege at a high school in rural Tennessee. Two months since he had fought to regain his job at an emotional three-day hearing, becoming a symbol of the acrimonious debate over the way race, racism and history should be taught in America's schools.
A lifelong resident of Kingsport, Hawn was well aware his liberal views made him an outlier in his overwhelmingly White, mostly conservative community. But that had never mattered before. He had taught in the Sullivan County school system for 16 years without any trouble. And he had taught the class that got him fired, "Contemporary Issues," for nearly a decade without a single parent complaint.
Then at the start of last school year, he made a pronouncement during a discussion about police shootings that would derail his career. White privilege, he told his nearly all-White class, is "a fact."
His firing comes amid a tsunami of conservative outrage about critical race theory, an academic framework for examining systemic racism in the United States that educators contend is rarely taught in public schools.
Hawn said he'd never heard of critical race theory until he was accused of teaching it.
Hawn discovered the concept of White privilege during President Barack Obama's tenure, he said, and began mentioning it in class.
He always presented White privilege as an incontestable truth, although he said he urged students to do their own research and challenge him if they disagreed.
His classes began focusing more on race during the Trump years, especially after the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017 and Floyd's murder three years later.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
Maybe he’ll take a day trip to Memphrica...
You need a high GPA to get into a good university, and challenging a liberal teacher on something as sacred to them as "white privilege" is a fast track to community college.
Let him go teach in some crappy inner city school, where he can pay penance for his white sin.
Exactly….. what are his qualifications for administering this version of “history”? Black , white , purple…. You corrupt young minds you should lose your job.
God Bless whoever fired his ass
“His firing comes amid a tsunami of conservative outrage about critical race theory, an academic framework for examining systemic racism in the United States that educators contend is rarely taught in public schools.”
That quote commits a vast lie in it’s description of Critical Race Theory (CRT). It purports to say that CRT is merely about examining “systemic racism”, when it fact CRT is not about “examining”, it is 100% about proclaiming many things, without evidence, about racism, period. The theory itself dos not examine with empirical data if and where “systemic” racism exists; it just, without study using empirical data, proclaims (a) systemic racism exists and (b) is pervasive in all U.S. society, and (c) together with “white supremacy” is the founding order of the U.S.
Yet, you cannot learn that from the reported description of CRT in the article.
“The 10-page ruling concluded that he had “acted unprofessionally . . . was insubordinate . . . and [failed] to [present] varying viewpoints, despite knowing he was to do so. Hawn was not getting his job back.”
That’s good. He’s not a teacher, he’s a propagandist.
The article is well written, but perhaps quite over-written.
It’s an article that is also long on showing sympathy for the fired teacher. He did act in an insubordinate manner. He was asked to tone down his political remarks, but brought that video of profane ‘poetry’ anyway because he felt like it.
He screwed up his own $60K per year career.
If he still wants to teach, he would be better off leaving that school district. That might make a difference.
He’d be more at home there. What is this guy doing in Kingsport, of all places? No diversity, no vegan restaurants, no gay bars ... what’s a nice young metrosexual fellow to do?
“White privilege, he told his nearly all-White class, is “a fact.””
He is an idiot, and that is a fact.
“Celebrate diversity” has led us into hell.
Gaydar
I doubt he'll be unemployed long after this Washington Post hagiography.
Excellent!
Now if we can get his citizenship revoked ...
All white male liberals look basically the same. Weak, stupid, gay.
It’s the Washington Post. It was probably designed to do exactly that.
At the age of 75, I am still trying to find a time when my white skin helped me in advancement in a job.
Nope. Never. I had to EARN everything I got.
On the other hand, others used Nepotism and practiced pulling a vacuum on an onion sack to get ahead.
It was said at our company that “Thirty minutes of sucking a*s was worth two years of college education and five years of on the job training.”
That is why I never advanced.
About 25 years ago, one of my family members was enrolled in master’s in education program at a large university in California. I can’t remember all of the details, but the professor assigned some essay topic involving his left-wing views. My family member turned in an essay challenging the professor’s views in a well-written, reasonable way... and promptly received an F. She was told that a do-over was possible. So my family member rewrote the essay reversing opinion on nearly every point. The rewritten essay received an “A-” and a handwritten comment along the lines, “Glad to see that you get it now.”
Nice. I was thinking of moving to the Kingsport area. This is a positive indicator.
Did he realize that his firing was proof that white privilege didn’t exist at his school?
{Hawn said he’d never heard of critical race theory until he was accused of teaching it.”
Right!
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