Teachers Targeted by Anti-Woke Movement Similar to Red Scare Of 1950s
Teachers are being swept up in an anti-woke wave, led by right wing Republicans like Gov. Ron Desantis and trump; 80 years ago, teachers lost their jobs in a tsunami of anti-Communism led by characters like Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wis., and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
The more things change, they more they stay the same as teachers continue to be political pawns in the right wing’s crusade against so-called woke values.
These days, a teacher could very likely be on the unemployment lines in some states for teaching about transgender and sexuality; for saying that “racial colorblindness” is racist or that “equity is a concept that is superior to or supplants the concept of equality”; or for “promoting a negative account or representation of the founding and history of the U.S.
In Virginia, GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin set up a “tip line” to report teachers who teach “divisive” ideas. In Florida, lawmakers proposed a bill to install cameras in classrooms to monitor supposedly subversive teaching. Another Florida bill allows parents to sue schools for teaching so-called critical race theory.
In Florida, teachers are required to include instruction on the so-called benefits of enslavement. In a stark reminder of past racist attitudes, in 1950, the N.Y. Teachers Union published a report on racism in textbooks used in the city schools. Among the examples were a text reporting that slavery was “a happy life” because it meant that slaves had “no cares except to do their work well”; another text, written by New York City Superintendent William Jansen, asserted that “the native people of Africa, who belong to the Negro race, are very backward.”
Right wing groups, like Moms for Liberty, have attended school board meetings, pressuring districts to fire teachers who mention LGBT rights, race and ethnicity, critical race theory, and discrimination.
The current culture war has reached such a fever pitch that former president trump has called for certification of “patriotic teachers,” the firing of “radicals” and the “direct election” of school principals by students’ parents. Trump called for the creation of a “new credentialing body” that would “certify teachers who embrace patriotic values” while “radicals, zealots and Marxists” would be fired. That would not include the trump backed insurrectionists of Jan. 6, 2021, as trump has deemed them to be “great patriots.”
More than a half century ago, a teacher could be fired for joining the Community Party, even if the person joined as a teenager, was never serious about communism and was a member only briefly.
In the heat of the McCarthy scares, the U.S. government stepped up loyalty programs and fired anyone deemed a security threat or was believed to be particularly susceptible to bribery or blackmail, such as debtors or homosexuals, who were summarily fired. Schools and universities fired teachers who refused to swear an oath that they were not communists
A Cobb County, Ga., elementary teacher is the latest in a long line of teachers who have recently lost their jobs because their beliefs conflicted with accepted norms.
Katherine Rinderle was fired from her position as a fifth-grade teacher at Due West Elementary in Cobb County after she read the book “My Shadow is Purple” to her students. The book by Stuart Scott is described as a “heartwarming and inspiring book about being true to yourself and moving beyond the gender binary.”
The Cobb County school board did not see Rinderle’s actions as “heartwarming” and decided that the teacher had violated at least six policies and administrative rules. The policies and rules are based on Georgia’s 2022 laws that restrict teachers from discussing supposedly divisive concepts in the classrooms, like LGBTQ issues.
A statement from the school board said it is “very serious about keeping our classrooms focused on teaching, learning, and opportunities for success for students.” Evidently teaching children about different ways of expressing sexuality is not a learning experience.
Rinderle said the school district was sending a “harmful message that not all students are worthy of affirmation in being their unapologetic and authentic selves.”
“This decision, based on intentionally vague policies, will result in more teachers self-censoring in fear of not knowing where the invisible line will be drawn. Censorship perpetuates harm and students deserve better,” Rinderle said.
Gabriel Gipe, a California teacher, ran afoul of district politics and was fired for allegedly having sympathies with Antifa and communist dictators. The California school district based the dismissal on the findings of Project Veritas, a far right activist group that has propagated false conspiracy theories.
The Natomas Unified School District Superintendent wrote that Gipe, a social studies teacher at Inderkum High School, would be terminated after Project Veritas allegedly found Antifa and Mao Zedong posters in his classroom and recorded him allegedly talking about indoctrinating his students.
Project Veritas is a far-right activist group founded in 2010 by James O’Keefe, who was removed from leadership positions in February 2023 for alleged financial malfeasance with donor money. Project Veritas has used deceptively edited videos and entrapment to generate bad publicity for its targets. Much of the funding for Project Veritas comes from anonymous donations through Donors Trust, a conservative, nonprofit donor-advised fund. Prominent donors include the Trump Foundation.
Gipe allegedly had a hammer and sickle tattoo and said in a video that that he was working to radicalize his students “further and further left.” He also allegedly had a collection of stamps dedicated to Communist dictators, including one of Joseph Stalin and “an insensitive phrase,” which he had allegedly used to mark students’ work as complete. Other stamps had images of Fidel Castro and Kim Jong Un, the school district said.
Gipe also gave students extra credit for attending protests, something the school board found “both unprofessional and irresponsible.”
“I’ve had students show up for protests, community events, tabling, food distribution, all sorts of things,” Gipe says in a video. “When they go, they take pictures, they write up a reflection — that’s their extra credit.”
In January, Gipe agreed to a settlement in which the district paid him $190,000 to resign without fighting his prospective firing.
It is not only the right that is going after teachers. Last week, the Allentown (Pa.) School District fired Jason Moorehead, a teacher who had been previously suspended after going to Washington, D.C., for the so-called “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, 2021. The rally was held to support trump’s false claims that widespread fraud cost him the 2020 election. After the rally, encouraged by trump, the rabble attacked the Capitol.
The school board voted unanimously to terminate the contract of Moorehead, an 18 year veteran of the district who taught at Raub Middle School.
Moorehead said he went to be a witness to a historic day and listen to then-President trump speak, and that he didn’t know about the deadly riot until much later. He told the school board he went to Washington “to hear some speeches, but I was never a part of any violence. Period.”
“We walked around the Washington Monument, tried to get close to the White House, ate a hot dog and went back to the bus,” Moorehead said.
Moorehead claimed the district called him an “active participant in the riots,” but that they they knew he was never part of it. He also claimed the board “colluded with community groups” to attack his character, being called a racist and a white supremacist.
“I am none of those things,” Moorehead said.
James Whitfield was the first African American principal ever to lead Colleyville Heritage High School in north Texas. Whitfield’s contract was not renewed after he was accused of teaching critical race theory and that he indoctrinated students in the classroom. Whitefield denied both claims, while his initial suspension triggered support among many minority students.
Critical race theory examines how racial inequality and racism are systemically embedded in American institutions. Texas, Florida and other states bar teachers from instructing about critical race theory.
Gemma Padgett, the district’s executive director of human resources, accused Whitfield of being “disrespectful, unreasonable and insubordinate,” of sowing division in the community, of failing to communicate with colleagues and of unprofessional conduct.
In an interview, Whitefield said that “For so long, students or people of color, any time we’ve brought up issues of race … it’s always turned back on you. It’s, ‘Well, just focus on moving on.’ ‘Don’t worry about those people.’”
Whitefield’s dismissal was upheld despite a groundswell of student support for the principal.
A 2022 Washington Post analysis found that more than 160 educators resigned or were fired from their jobs in the past two academic years because of culture wars. On average, the Post reported that slightly more than two teachers lost their jobs for every week that school remained in session.
“Educators fear conditions will only worsen as lawmakers seek to regulate how teachers talk about any number of issues, including politics, race, history, gender identity and sexuality, creating a new basis to push teachers out,” the Post reported. “In some cases, the authors of education-related bills and laws have used vague, broad and unclear wording, leading to widespread concern that teachers may unintentionally run afoul of the law.”
These are hard times for teachers who are low hanging fruit for politicians looking to appeal to parents and to show that they are guardians of morality and leaders in the right wing, anti-woke movement.
In the 1950s, teachers were fired but it wasn’t fear of transgender students or that white students were being shamed into feeling guilt for the nation’s racist history.
It was a time when former State Department official Alger Hiss had been convicted of perjury in connection with his testimony about his involvement with the Communist Party. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg had been sentenced to death for passing atomic secrets to the Soviets. Sen. McCarthy was busy destroying lives as he made a career out of searching for non-existent communists in the government. By 1952, many Americans were convinced that communist agents and supporters had infiltrated every aspect of American life.
A New York City elementary school teacher, Minnie Gutride, 40, killed herself with oven gas two days after Christmas on Dec. 26, 1948. She had been called out of her classroom to be questioned about Communist activities. Gutride was one of many teachers whose lives were ruined or ended.
Gutride was summoned from her classroom to answer questions about alleged communist meetings in 1940 and 1941, and was threatened with hints of legal action and charges of insubordination if she refused to cooperate. The Teachers Union claimed that Gutride had been questioned by two assistants of the school superintendent “in a threatening manner about alleged community meetings supposed to have been held in 1940 and 1941” and that as a result she killed herself. The district denied authorities were in any way responsible.
Gutride committed suicide two days later in her home at 200 W. 16th St., according to a Dec. 25, 1948, story in the NY. Times.
School Superintendent William Jansen said Gutride was interrogated because “Recently specific information concerning the late Mrs.Gutride’s alleged communistic activities came to my attention.”
“Pending further study no action was taken against Mrs. Gutride,” Jansen said. “It is regrettable when any human being takes his life by his own hands. It is particularly so when a teacher on active duty does so.”
More than 70 years ago, Irving Adler was accused of being a Communist and was dismissed from his job in 1952 at the Straubenmuller Textile High School on West 18th Street in New York City.
Adler was one of more than 1,150 teachers around the country and 378 in New York City who were accused by the government of being “card carrying communists.” They were fired, resigned or chose early retirement after invoking the Fifth Amendment became automatic grounds for termination.
The way to exoneration was for teachers to “name names,” identify others who might have been in the Party, attended a Marxist study group, or otherwise showed leftist tendencies. Association with the Communist Party became the standard of guilt, even if membership was brief, halfhearted, or free of any revolutionary intent.
Adler was fired after he refused to name names or otherwise answer questions before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee investigating Communist influence in schools. At the time, Adler was the math department chairman and a member of the executive board of the Teachers Union, which also came under attack by the subcommittee.
Early in 1950, George Timone, a most vehement Red-hunter, introduced a resolution that barred the Teachers Union from representing teachers before the Board or negotiating with the Board on any issue. Two weeks later, the union published its report on widespread racism in textbooks used in the city schools.
The Teachers Union was expelled from the American Federation of Teachers in 1941 before disbanding in 1964. It was succeeded by the United Federation of Teachers.
Adler joined the American Communist Party in 1935, when he was 22. He quit the party after the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary but the F.B.I. in 1965 still listed him as “a potentially dangerous individual who should be placed on the Security Index” subject to detention in the event of a national emergency.
The FBI’s Security Index, later known as the Rabble Rouser index, was linked with the Custodial Detention Index (CDI), or Custodial Detention List. The list was formed at the start of World War II, in 1939–1941.
J. Edgar Hoover said the FBI had created large numbers of files on “individuals, groups, and organizations engaged in subversive activities”, including espionage, and enabled the bureau to “immediately identify potential threats.” Rep. Vito Marcantonio, a New York member of the American Labor Party called the file “terror by index cards.”
The Custodial Detention Index listed three levels of suspects and potential subversives. The top level suspects were to be arrested immediately and interned at the beginning of war. The other levels were deemed “less dangerous” or sympathizers. The names of people on the list were not removed until after the person died.
The program involved creation of individual dossiers from information obtained secretly, “including unsubstantiated data and in some cases, even hearsay and unsolicited telephone tips, and information acquired without judicial warrants by mail covers and interception of mail, wiretaps and covert searches,” according to a published report.
Hoover and the FBI created the list from which 110,000 people were interned in concentration camps, 70,000 of which were American-born of Japanese descent.
The FBI also maintained a Security Index of people who might commit acts inimical to the national defense and public safety in time of emergency. Those on the list could be arrested upon the order of a president invoking the Emergency Detention Program. Another list, the Reserve Index, listed all left-wingers and people suspected of being a Communist. By 1950s, there were 5,000 names on the Security Index, while the Reserve Index had 50,000 in the Chicago field office.
Adler later filed a legal challenge to the state’s Feinberg Law, which was enacted in 1949, and directed the Board of Regents to list organizations it considered subversive and deemed membership in those organizations prima facie evidence for firing any public school employee.
On March 3, 1952, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Feinberg Law that prohibited communists from teaching in public schools. The court ruled against Adler and held in a 6-to-3 decision that there was “no constitutional infirmity” in the Feinberg Law. Associate Justices William O. Douglas, Hugo Black and Felix Frankfurter dissented, declaring that the law “turns the school system into a spying project.”
The decision stood until 1967, when the Supreme Court reversed it with a 5-to-4 ruling. Dozens of dismissed teachers were eventually reinstated, and in 1977 Adler began receiving his annual pension of $14,901.
“None of those teachers were ever found negligent in the classroom,” Clarence Taylor, a professor of history at Baruch College, told the N.Y. Times in a June 15, 2009 story. Taylor has written a study of the Teachers Union and the ideological strife that destroyed it. “They went after them for affiliation with the Communist Party.”
In addition to New York City, teachers were interrogated in Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland, Detroit and Buffalo, among other cities.
The city’s powerful assistant corporation counsel, Saul Moskoff, was assigned to the Board of Education as chief prosecutor. He became the face of the witch hunt to rid the schools of subversion and the one to pose the frightening question “Are you now or have you ever been a Communist?”