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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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To: Vaquero

No.

Twelve million died in the German Socialist Holocaust.
Six million of those were Jews.


61 posted on 07/07/2019 6:21:39 AM PDT by MrEdd (Caveat Emptor)
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To: servo1969

The non believers say massive deaths due to sickness, typhoid, dysentery, etc not Nazi’s gassing the Jews. That was what one of my radical liberal coworkers told me one day at work. I was speechless.


62 posted on 07/07/2019 6:26:30 AM PDT by Engedi (ui)
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To: Kaslin
a school leader’s failure to separate truth from myth.

Truth is identified by reference to a body of evidence. It is judged to be true because it can be integrated without contradiction into a total context of prior objective knowledge.

63 posted on 07/07/2019 6:27:56 AM PDT by mjp ((pro-{God, reality, reason, egoism, individualism, natural rights, limited government, capitalism}))
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To: Kaslin

Another Reason to Homeschool....


64 posted on 07/07/2019 6:28:34 AM PDT by Deplorable American1776 (Proud to be a DeplorableAmerican with a Deplorable Family...even the dog is, too. :-))
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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.

If he "can't say" then he should be terminated, by using the 'final solution'.

When he walks into the gas chamber, we'll see if his memory improves.

65 posted on 07/07/2019 6:28:43 AM PDT by USS Alaska
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To: Kaslin

I think the whole slavery thing may be a myth.


66 posted on 07/07/2019 6:31:08 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: willyd

Yes, I think an opportunity was missed to ask the administrator one more question:

How many of those against teaching about the Holocaust believe “it would have been a good thing had it happened?”

Holocaust denial is simply a big step towards that view.


67 posted on 07/07/2019 6:41:48 AM PDT by Cincinnatus.45-70 (What do DemocRats enjoy more than a truckload of dead babies? Unloading them with a pitchfork!)
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets

Great quote.


68 posted on 07/07/2019 6:44:17 AM PDT by gibsonguy
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To: Kaslin

This fits right in with the Left running interference for AOC to defend her remarks comparing illegal alien detention centers to concentration camps. In short order the MSM was drumming up no end of academic experts to defend her statements while studiously ignoring the remarks of actual camp survivors.


69 posted on 07/07/2019 6:48:17 AM PDT by Flick Lives (MSM, the Enemy of the People since 1898)
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To: JayGalt

Funny how some groups of people after an atrocity is committed upon them whine for generations. While others arm themselves stoically to prevent another atrocity.


70 posted on 07/07/2019 6:48:47 AM PDT by Vaquero ( Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.)
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To: MrEdd

Yup. Got it


71 posted on 07/07/2019 6:50:01 AM PDT by Vaquero ( Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.)
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To: Kaslin

Stupid anti-Semitic statement.


72 posted on 07/07/2019 6:50:22 AM PDT by SkyDancer ( ~ Just Consider Me A Random Fact Generator ~ Eat Sleep Fly Repeat ~)
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To: CapnJack

My father, G-d bless him, is still here and has spent the last 74 years since being liberated by the American 26th Yankee Division bearing witness to the 6 concentration camps he was in, the death march he barely survived and the countless murders he saw perpetrated with his own eyes.


73 posted on 07/07/2019 6:51:12 AM PDT by JewishRighter
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To: Kaslin

Remember when we looked up to school principals


74 posted on 07/07/2019 6:51:16 AM PDT by morphing libertarian ( Use Comey's Report, Indict Hillary now; build Kate's wall. --- Proud Smelly Walmart Deplorable)
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To: central_va
You think?

I suggest you let the horses think, because they have larger heads.

Slaves have been around for thousands of years, and there are still countries where slavery exist to this day. You are just in denial.

SHAME ON YOU!!!

75 posted on 07/07/2019 6:57:10 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: SkyDancer

Stupid and ignorant.


76 posted on 07/07/2019 7:00:06 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: joma89

Stories like this simply illustrate that when education is deliberately dumbed down (primarily to erase Western Civilization) then you don’t get to pick and choose what students do bother learning. If they are too medicated/stoned/distracted with electronic gadgets or sexual images, then they’ll learn as much about European history in the 1930s/1940s as they will about trigonometry (very little).


77 posted on 07/07/2019 7:02:51 AM PDT by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: Kaslin

Liberalism at its finest.


78 posted on 07/07/2019 7:05:44 AM PDT by SkyDancer ( ~ Just Consider Me A Random Fact Generator ~ Eat Sleep Fly Repeat ~)
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To: skimbell
Ok...I had a feeling...I guess his school is turning out football players thinking that this --> 🐈 is spelled K-A-T and degrees in Indoctrination 101...
79 posted on 07/07/2019 7:10:38 AM PDT by Deplorable American1776 (Proud to be a DeplorableAmerican with a Deplorable Family...even the dog is, too. :-))
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To: Kaslin

My great uncle was one who went in after to “clean up” those camps. He was messed up after that and eventually committed suicide. Yeah, uh huh, keep saying it never happened.


80 posted on 07/07/2019 7:11:46 AM PDT by bgill
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