EXCLUSIVE: NYC high school teacher claims she was fired for Central Park Five lessons that administrators feared would create 'riots'
The Central Park Five ordeal led to a 2014 settlement and now a controversy at an Upper West Side school.
A teacher at an Upper West Side high school was fired for creating a curriculum with lessons about the Central Park Five that administrators feared would “rile up” black students, according to a new federal lawsuit.
English teacher Jeena Lee-Walker said her bosses at the High School for Arts, Imagination and Inquiry urged her in November 2013 to be more “balanced” in her approach to the racially charged Central Park jogger case that ended withfive black and Latino teens being exonerated after spending several years in prison for the attack.
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They told her the lessons could create little “riots,” according to court papers.
“I was stunned,” she told the Daily News. “I was kind of like, the facts are the facts. This is what happened. These boys went to jail and lost 14, 18 years of their lives. How can you say that in a more balanced way?”
Although Lee-Walker, 37, agreed to soften her approach, she argued “that students in general, and black students in particular, should be riled up.”NYC teacher fired for lessons about Central Park Five - NY Daily News: