Teacher’s Union Lawsuit Misrepresents Tennessee Law, Spins Narrative In Blount County (Op-Ed)
Image Credit: Blount County Schools / Facebook
Submitted by David Coleman –
The Tennessee Conservative does an amazing job keeping us updated on everything the conservative majority needs to know.
A while back, you read here about the Tennessee Education Association (TEA) lawsuit against the Tennessee Department of Education challenging the Prohibited Concepts in Education Law (Tenn. Code Ann. § 49-6-1019).
I want to share how this hits close to home for those of us in Blount County.
To my knowledge, the challenge of the book Dragonwings being assigned curriculum here in Blount County is the only example of this law being acted on anywhere in the state. The fight for our kid’s future is not in a blue state far far away. Tennessee is ground zero.
The lawsuit presents a former Blount County Schools employee as an example of the “harms suffered” by the law. This person was not a classroom teacher at the time, and anything they may have had to answer for would have resulted from action taken while in a leadership position at Central Office.
It is a misrepresentation for the lawsuit to say that this person’s “experience illustrates to teachers across Tennessee that…one parent can put an educator’s job, reputation, and career at risk.”
This lawsuit can show no evidence that a teacher anywhere in the state has been negatively affected by this law. Per this lawsuit, the curriculum challenged in Blount County has been removed district-wide.
At the beginning of the lawsuit, the teachers’ union misrepresented the law and began their attempt to spin the narrative.
The opening paragraph states: “The Ban purports to restrict references to race, gender, and other subjects in Tennessee public schools.” Although “ban” is one of their favorite buzzwords, it is not found anywhere in the law or its implementing regulations.
However, this doesn’t stop the TEA from using it over 100 times in their lawsuit. Their opening statement implies that simply discussing race would be a violation.
This law only prohibits 14 specific concepts, such as “One race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex.”
The lawsuit claims that the law “denies Tennessee’s K-12 public school educators a reasonable opportunity to understand what they can teach in the classroom.”
We have no reason to believe any educator in Tennessee cannot read and understand the 14 prohibited concepts found in Tenn. Code Ann. § 49-6-1019. It is two pages long and signed into law over two years ago.
The local head of the Blount County Education Association (BCEA) is a plaintiff in the lawsuit and a local librarian. Even though this law has nothing to do with library books, she “fears that books in her library” may violate this law.
The challenge of the book Dragonwings was never a request for its removal from any library. It is still included in multiple school libraries in Blount County, including the school where the challenge was made. The challenge was against a copy of the book being issued to every 6th grader as assigned reading.
This lawsuit has nothing to do with the teacher’s union supporting teachers and everything to do with the TEA being told what they can not teach. They do not like that this law has put them on notice that the National Education Association does not share our values here in Tennessee.
The lawsuit lists eight lawyers representing the TEA, five from law offices in New York City. You can read the entire lawsuit at TEAlawsuit.BCSdocs.com.
This guy wants to control what your kids read, he wasnt happy just opting his kid out of the curriculum. David Coleman wants to interject everything he thinks into your kids education.. why is that acceptable?
Sir, you are wrong. The union is to protect teachers only, the union does not educate our children. the union has no business in deciding the curriculum in the schools. I watched this happen in Delaware, the result was very high cost of education per student and very low test scores. Schools need to get back to giving our kids an education that can be used in the real world.
The tentacles of critical race theory reach quite far. The current president of the national library association is a committed Marxist and has advocated for the destruction of the nuclear family. I am with the handful of Tennessee lawmakers that want to refuse every penny from the Department of Education.
You Sir could thew children of Tennessee a great favor and leave the STATE!
This is not what I intended, It is addressed to the wrong person and not at all what I intended to say.
These unions need to be abolished for good. Nothing but a breeding ground for Liberalism / WOKEness transferred to our children. All these teachers need to stop paying their dews if at all possible.