While some schools around the country have embraced equity and inclusion by celebrating Black Lives Matter Day, other schools are sending the message that shows of diversity and solidarity are anti-Trump. That’s … telling.
School administrators in Carroll County, Maryland, recently asked high school teachers to take down posters from their classrooms that they considered “political” and “anti-Trump.” You’ve likely seen the posters that they insisted come down. They have been making the rounds in protest spaces since the inauguration and Women’s March.
In 2017, it’s almost hard to believe that a show of diversity would be seen as offensive and one-sided in a public educational institution. Almost.
The teachers put up the posters as a “show of diversity,” said Carey Gaddis, a spokeswoman for Carroll County Public Schools.
At least one staff member complained about the posters, and the teachers were “asked to take them down because they were being perceived as anti-Trump by the administration,” Gaddis said.
After taking the posters down, the teachers were initially allowed to put them up again. But the administration did some further investigation online and determined that the posters could be seen as political. The school does not allow teachers to put up political posters in their classrooms “unless it’s part of a curriculum and they represent both sides,” Gaddis said.
Representing both sides of a debate is fine—although what is the opposite side to diversity? Homogeneity? White supremacy? If the school administrators really believe that diversity is political and needs to be presented as only one side of an argument, then we’ve got way bigger problems than a few posters.
Not surprisingly, according to statistics Carroll County is 93 percent white.
Carroll County’s school system has struggled to attract more diverse staff, according to a report filed with the school board last year, and only about 4 percent of its employees identify as minorities. Jim Doolan, who was board president at the time, told the Carroll County Times in 2016 that when he first came to the school system to teach more than 30 years ago, he would find Ku Klux Klan invitations on his car windshield.
Carroll County also has a reputation as a place where people of color don’t want to be after work hours, Superintendent Stephen Guthrie told the Times. Staff members said they were trying to change that perception.
School officials (who are clearly demonstrating little to no sense whatsoever) have likened this “debate” to the Confederate flag.
The principal is looking into alternative images that people can display, Johnson said. But he likened the issue to the controversy over the Confederate battle flag.
“The Confederate flag in and of itself has no image of slavery or hatred or oppression, but it’s symbolic of that,” Johnson told HuffPost. “These posters have absolutely no mention of Trump or any other political issue ― it’s the symbolism of what they were representing. They were carried in these protests.”
Good grief. Sounds like the administrators are just as out of touch as Trump and his followers.