There has been a lot of criticism over the viability of the American education system, especially when it comes to teachers injecting partisan politics into the classroom. From critical race theory to transgender education, parents have revolted, descending on school boards across the country with their fervent objections. Despite being called “domestic terrorists” for standing up for their children, protesting parents continued to fight. Now, some of those openly communist educators are paying the price by losing their jobs – but at what cost to the taxpayer?
Communist Educator Paid Off to Leave Quietly
A self-proclaimed Antifa member in Sacramento, CA, who also worked as an AP Government teacher for Inderkum High School, was paid $190,000 to quietly leave his position and forego legal proceedings. Gabriel Gipe’s classroom wasn’t set up for your average government lesson; it had an Antifa flag on the wall as well as a poster of the late Chinese Communist Party leader, Mao Zedong.
In an undercover Project Veritas video, Gipe remarked on how a student anonymously complained about the Antifa flag, saying “it made him feel uncomfortable.” Since Gipe didn't know which of his pupils made the comment, the teacher addressed the class with this pearl: “Well, this [Antifa flag] is meant to make fascists feel uncomfortable, so if you feel uncomfortable, I don't really know what to tell you. Maybe you shouldn’t be aligning with the values that this is antithetical to.”
Mr. Gipe said he had just 180 days to turn his students into “revolutionaries” and gave them extra-credit projects which sent the high schoolers to protests, marches, and other events aligned with his own political ideals. Worse, though not surprising, he revealed in the video there were other teachers at the school like him, communist educators filling young minds with Marxism.
Joseph Kennedy (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
For someone to be paid off rather than getting fired outright for abusing school policy, however, is more reward than punishment. Mr. Gipe received about three years’ salary to quit. When has that happened for conservatives forced out of academia? For example, Joseph Kennedy, a Bremerton, WA, high school football coach, was fired for praying after a game. Kari MacRae, a teacher from Massachusetts, was fired (she refused to resign) when a social media post surfaced of her campaign to run for the school board. In it, she said: “So pretty much the reason I ran for school board is to ensure that students, at least in our town, are not being taught critical race theory. That they’re not being taught that the country was built on racism.” Both were pushed out over their beliefs, and neither received a three-year paid vacation as compensation.
As of June, there were 74 cases over two years where teachers were fired, according to a prominent Washington newspaper, and 92 instances in which they resigned – either voluntarily or due to pressure. These “took place in at least 28 states, with California, Oregon, Texas, Pennsylvania and New York boasting the largest number of incidents (eight each).”
The difference between conservatives and progressives isn’t that great: 35 conservative teachers lost their jobs compared to 33 liberals. Personal political beliefs should not be pushed in classrooms. Now schools seem to finally be doing something about it – but at what cost? How many communist educators will be paid off with American tax dollars?
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