Ramona Bessinger is the Providence, RI, teacher who has been under attack ever since, as a middle school teacher, she blew the whistle at Legal Insurrection on a new radicalized and racialized curriculum that was creating racial tension in school, including turning students and staff against her because she is white.
Bessinger suffered retaliation, including physical intimidation. Bessinger also received an involuntary transfer to Classical High School, where she sat in the basement for almost a year before finally getting a classroom teaching position after filing a formal grievance.
In the past month, a campaign to drive Bessinger out of Classical High has been organized ostensibly by students, but Bessinger says teachers have been involved. See these prior posts for more background.
The “progressive” community is working itself, and students, into a frenzy on social media encouraging and amplifying the efforts to get Bessinger fired. Accusations Bessinger says are false are spread on websites and Twitter.
Bessinger has previously notified the school administration of her concerns for her physical safety. This morning the situation worsened dramatically.
Bessinger says she was walking down a hallway-type area not far from her classroom when she heard shouting at her. It was not until she was closer, only about 10 feet away from a group of students, that she heard one of the student leaders of the protests screaming at her in front of other students that he would kill her: “Fuck you, fuck you. I want to kill you.” He may have screamed other things as well before she realized he was screaming at her.
No other students were screaming at her. Bessinger says she had previously complained to the school about this student hanging around outside her classroom.
She has reported the incident to the school as well as filing a police report. According to what she was told by the police officer, the student is being charged with Disorderly Conduct. She does not know if the police will issue a restraining order. We will try to get a copy of that report from the Providence police.
The school has not informed Bessinger what steps are being taken with regard to the student being permitted to remain in the school or to protect Bessinger. On September 29, as part of seeking comment on the protests, we emailed Providence Public Schools the following question:
2. What steps is the administration taking to ensure Ms. Bessinger’s safety, given her history of complaining about harassment and social media postings by students calling on participants to cover their faces to avoid identification?
As of this writing, we still have not received a response.
More details will follow as they become available.
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