Posted on 03/09/2003 8:12:46 AM PST by yankeedame
Sunday, March 9, 2003
Teacher fired for criticism of blacks
The Associated Press
EVARTS, Ky. - A Harlan County teacher has been fired after he sent an e-mail containing remarks about the black population.
Ralph Crow, 48, a Spanish teacher at Evarts High School, received a dismissal letter Friday from school district Superintendent Timothy Saylor. Saylor said Crow's e-mail was insensitive and demonstrated conduct of an "immoral character."
Crow sent the two-page e-mail Feb. 21 to about 40 staff members at the school. It said that achievements of whites are ignored so "non-achieving minorities can have the spotlight." It also said African-Americans are responsible for "about 90%" of violent crimes and the main achievement of Martin Luther King Jr. was the "introduction and promotion of communism."
Crow said his e-mail was meant as sarcasm and that he is a victim of political correctness and an overzealous superintendent.
"He's using his personal political views to silence me," Crow said.
Crow said his right to free speech was violated and that he plans to appeal his firing. Crow has 10 days to inform Saylor and the Kentucky Department of Education of his intent to challenge his dismissal, said Lisa Gross, a spokeswoman for the department. A three-member tribunal from outside Harlan County would then conduct a hearing on the matter.
Saylor told the teacher he had violated state board of education and county school district policies with his use of the school district's e-mail system. Crow also violated county school regulations on harassment and discrimination, Saylor wrote.
As grounds for the dismissal, Saylor wrote in the letter that Crow's conduct could cause "great disruption" to the school system.
Erma Murphy, 71, a woman whose black grandson was in Crow's Spanish class several years ago, said she was surprised the teacher was being accused of racism.
"I've never observed anything that was racist from him," said Murphy, adding that Crow worked hard to encourage her grandson to excel.
Raoul Cunningham, former director of the NAACP voter-empowerment program, said he was disgusted by the e-mail.
"There is no question that it's racist," Cunningham said. "It's just so unfortunate that he chose the profession of teaching."
I have seen this happen, and the libs love it so I will agree that this may be the case.
As far as the crime rate, I fail to see what that has to do with anything in a public school and I have no idea about the MLK accusation. I know he was investigated for communist links because one of his staff had ties to the commies, but to the best of my knowledge he was never linked to any wrongdoing himself.
On the whole it just sounds like an anti-black rant.
There was a time when action meant more then words. Today the opposite is true.
The techer was just plain stupid, in this day and age, to put any negative connotation to a minority, regardless of the potential validity of the observation.
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I personally heard this comment and many more like it in the intervening six years at that school. In 2001 I was the social studies teacher of the year and at the time, I heard protests from black faculty that it wasn't possible for a white teacher to earn such while teaching black students!
99% of the black faculty at the school are such roaring racists that I have decided to transfer to another school, even though the kids are begging me not to! But this place is just killing my soul as a teacher.
That's a reasonably accurate description of black history month, etc., althogh I'd argue the exaggerated emphasis put on even relatively minor achievements by people who happen to be black is patronizing in the extreme, and in the end harms blacks by diminishing expectations, whereas it hurts whites hardly at all. I don't think Einstein is turning in his grave because they make a big deal about the invention, say, of a minor piece of industrial equipment by some African American inventor.
It also said African-Americans are responsible for "about 90%" of violent crimes
I believe the true figure is somewhere between 40 and 50%.
and the main achievement of Martin Luther King Jr. was the "introduction and promotion of communism."
I'm no admirer of King's, but this is b.s. . If he'd called him a plagiarist and a libertine he'd have been on rock-solid ground.
All in all, it was a rant, and one very weakly founded on fact. I think it's still covered by the first amendment, but he'd have a much stronger case if he'd spent five minutes checking his facts before sending it.
This is exactly true. MLK gets his own day, while George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln are lumped together in an unnamed day. King's achievements were minor...winning blacks the widespread right to vote, but being totally silent on the increasing out-of-wedlock tragedy and welfare dependency of the black family...which exploded into riots and crime in the late 60's and 1970s, and have doomed blacks to prison, poverty and disenfranchisement to this very day.
but being totally silent on the increasing out-of-wedlock tragedy and welfare dependency of the black family...
This is untrue.
King was killed in '68. If you look back, intact black families and out-of-wedlock-births were nowhere near the outrageous levels as they are today. The '50s and '60s were really the better times for these things.
The escalating levels didn't occur until the '70s, and King was dead before then.
ummm...black men had the right to vote since the 1870's thanks to the 15th ammendment. (before white women did in fact)...a common misconception these days.
The man shouldn't be using the school system e-mail to air these views. The article never said who the e-mail went to. Was it sent to other teachers?
I agree that it is rather insulting for MLK to have his own day while Washington and Lincoln's days have been merged and renamed. But I don't think MLK day is without merit. He was the leader of a large movement which worked for civil rights in a non-violent manner. Whether or not he wrote the Dream speech, I think the message is a good one for our children.
If this teacher's purpose was to question the validity of a school holiday, within the school system, he was within his rights. But he went about it in an inflammatory and frankly boneheaded manner. I can't support him.
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