The Kettle Moraine School Board voted last week to ban pride and Black Lives Matter flags in the classroom. The teachers also cannot display their preferred pronouns in emails.
From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
[Superintendent Stephen] Plum said district policy prohibits staff from using their positions to promote partisan politics, sectarian religious views, selfish propaganda for personal, monetary or nonmonetary gain.He said after legal analysis of the policy, the expectation is that teachers and administration will not display political or religious messaging in classrooms or on their person, including Pride flags. The expectation also prohibits pronouns, political language and religious views from staff emails and signatures, and that the standardized email expectation is name, position, title, location, certification, awards and degrees.Plum said that although the policy’s language hasn’t changed, its interpretation, application and expectations have changed.Plum also said Black Lives Matter, Thin Blue Line and We Back The Badge signs and flags could be considered political.
Good. Politics and religion have no place in public schools. Considering how sensitive everyone is, it’s just better to say no to everything.
Thanks, snowflakes.
I mean, just look at some of the responses:
One of the commenters, Hayley Rozman, wrote that she was concerned about the mental health of LGBTQIA+ students and called the decision “absolutely horrendous.” Rozman identifies as gender nonbinary (she/they) and queer and is a 2014 Kettle Moraine High School graduate.”By prohibiting the staff from having any sort of communications in the sense of promoting ‘I’m a safe space,’ ‘I have a rainbow flag’ or anything, doesn’t allow for any safety for students. If they are not safe at home, and they have to go to school eight hours a day, how can they be safe there? There’s nowhere to go. There’s no one to turn to. You don’t know who to talk to and how to be safe,” Rozman said in a July 28 phone interview.
Another one cannot believe the school board labeled the pride flag as political.
Guess what. The loudmouths in the LGBT community made it political:
Trey Korte, a former English teacher from Kettle Moraine High School who identifies as gay, was another of the many commenters on the district’s Facebook post. He questioned why the Pride flag was considered “political” or “religious” and why the district did not consider it a violation of freedom of speech to prohibit teachers from using their personal pronouns.”The idea that the very presence of a Pride flag or markers that say this is a safe space — for that to be deemed as either political or religious, that seemed to be a real stretch. It seemed a passive-aggressive, legalistic way of silencing LGBTQ teachers and allies and students,” Korte said in a phone interview.”Teachers not being able to promote political viewpoints – I get it, that’s fair, that’s sensible,” he added. “(But) If you’re going to tell a teacher that you can’t have a Pride flag because it’s ‘political,’ then I feel like the onus ought to be on you to explain why it’s political, and that’s the question they don’t seem to be answering. I feel like there’s avoidance there,” Korte said.
It reminds me of the Radiohead song “Just.” “You do it to yourself, just you. And that’s why it really hurts. You do it to yourself just you. You and no one else…”
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY