You should know this is happening: Richard Corcoran, the Florida Dept of Education Commissioner, said he fired a teacher for #BlackLivesMatter
Here is what the Florida Times-Union said about the situation
A Duval County teacher who hung a Black Lives Matter flag in her classroom says she heard she was fired through a YouTube video.
On Monday, Amy Donofrio’s legal team released a statement criticizing a recent guest speaking engagement from Florida Department of Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran at Hillsdale College, a private conservative school in Michigan. Until recently, Corcoran was short-listed in the running for the new Florida State University President position. He is not among the three finalists for the position.
Corcoran used Donofrio as an example while speaking about critical race theory and curriculum oversight and announced that he had her fired.
They continued,
In March, the school district announced Donofrio would be removed from her classroom while Duval Schools conducted an investigation for “several allegations.” The district declined to say what those allegations are, citing the active investigation. By April, the Southern Poverty Law Center announced it was suing Duval Schools on Donofrio’s behalf.
“I’m getting sued right now in Duval County, which is in Jacksonville because there was an entire classroom memorialized to Black Lives Matter,” Corcoran said during his presentation. “We made sure she was terminated and now we’re being sued by every one of the liberal left groups who say it’s freedom of speech issue.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center weighed in,
“That this decision has been made by those at the highest level of Florida’s Department of Education before the DCPS investigation is even completed shows the depth of the retaliation and deprivation of due process and free speech upon which Ms. Donofrio’s lawsuit against the District is based. According to Corcoran, a classroom that teaches Black Lives Matter or what Corcoran has labeled ‘crazy liberal stuff’ justifies censorship and the firing of teachers.”
We’ve recently heard quite a bit about “cancel culture” and “free speech” from a certain ilk. Here’s what I tweeted about it recently.
In fact, we used Critical Race Theory in a Harvard Education Review article some years back to talk about the very issue at stake here: Politicians have abused their power to limit scholarly conversation about slavery, racism and other prejudice in classrooms. We found in our research that policymakers and elected official have gone out the way to sanitize historical truths.
Their current strategy is to try to cancel history, Critical Race Theory and limit freedom of speech in the classroom. The irony of their actions relative to their rhetoric is NOT lost on anyone. #ISupportAmy
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