Reversing the Situation on Liberal Teachers: Conservative Teacher Suspends Student for Supporting Gays?

For kicks and giggles, today me and another teacher played a little prank on our staff, although they never knew they were being punked.

"Did you guys here about the conservative teacher in Clarkston who kicked out the pro-gay student in his class," I asked my fellow teachers today while we were eating lunch. They hadn't heard about this incident (which is made up) or the real incident in Howell (which is the exact opposite of what I related to them), so I told them: "What happened is that one of the students in this conservative teacher's class was wearing a rainbow flag Tshirt, and this teacher didn't like gay people so he asked the student to turn the shirt inside out, and the student responded by asking why he had to do that when the teacher was wearing a Confederate Flag belt buckle. The teacher then explained that gay people were bad and that Confederates were good. The kid disagreed with the teacher, and then the teacher told the kid that he was wrong and that his opinions were wrong, and when the kid told him his reasons, the teacher threw him out of class and suspended him for class for thought crimes. Later administration reprimanded the teacher for his behavior. What do you all think about that?"

This was purely a fishing expedition for me, to see if I could bait some of these liberal teachers who fill the public schools of our nation into agreeing with administration (something that teachers rarely do) and talking about how this teacher was indeed wrong, and to be honest I caught a lot!

"This teacher was so wrong to make kids comply with his beliefs," one teacher said. Another said "This is bullying and shouldn't be tolerated in schools." A really liberal teacher was very angry and said "I hope they fire this teacher- he shouldn't be allowed to continue to push his conservative views in public schools!" As a whole, my gauge of the discussion after several minutes was that most teachers on our staff were supportive of administration's attempts to 'silence the conservative teacher for pushing his views.'

It was at this time, after this pre-arranged amount of time, that my buddy came into the room, sat down, got out his lunch, and listened to the conversation for a minute, and then interjected- "Excuse me guys, but I think you are a little confused. It's the exact opposite of what you are talking about." My buddy then proceeded to tell the teachers what really happened.

In the Howell School District in Michigan, on Oct. 20 an economics teacher named Jay McDowell told a student in his classroom to remove a Confederate Flag belt buckle. The girl complied, but another student asked the teacher about how the flag differs from the rainbow flag that the teacher was wearing on his shirt. The teacher explained that he thought that one flag stood for slavery and the other flag stood for gay rights, to which the student replied 'I don't accept gays.' The teacher then told the student that he wasn't allowed to personally express his view that he didn't like gays, even though the student explained that his objection was based on his personal religion. The teacher then told the student that it wasn't 'appropriate to say something like that in class', and gave the student a one-day class suspension and kicked the student out of the room. Administration then reprimanded the teacher for his behavior for violating the students' free speech rights as well as school policy."

The reaction to hearing the true events was priceless. There was a long moment of silence as liberals were forced to stare their previous statements in the face and fit in reality with their views, and then with a shudder, these liberal teachers jerked back into the recesses of their minds and reversed course and revealed their hypocrisy.

"The teacher should be able to run his classroom however he wants," one teacher said. "This teacher was stopping bullying and intolerance and encouraging diversity" another teacher said. A really liberal teacher said "I hope they suspend this student for a long time- he shouldn't be allowed to continue to push his conservative views in public schools!" As a whole, after hearing the true story of what happened, my gauge of the discussion that most teachers on our staff were opposed to administration, were supportive of the teacher, and were very hateful of the student who expressed his private viewpoint on gays in a high school economics class.

I've pointed out many times that I don't mind people who really believe in individual liberty, freedom, free speech, or conservative views. I honestly don't mind socialists or communists that much (although I don't agree with them), as long as they are consistent. But liberals seem to have a problem being consistent and having an ideology which really has no any mooring on anything, and this does bug me. Support or oppose the teacher, and don't switch based on the teacher's views. Support or oppose the student, and don't switch based on views. Public schools are not the place to force viewpoints and religious views on students- they are places to teach economics, science, math, reading, or critical thinking. Bullying students, whether they are conservative or liberal, should always be punished- in both the fictional story and the real story, the teacher was wrong and administration was right.

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