SEPT 2020 Blues Vol 36 No 9

Governor blasts school assignment
comparing cops to KKK
By Jessica Schladebeck,
New York Daily News
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has demanded
a teacher at a school in
Fort Worth be fired over a lesson
that featured a cartoon comparing
police officers to slave owners
and members of the Ku Klux
Klan.
The Republican leader in a
tweet on Monday blasted the
assignment as “beyond unacceptable”
while calling for an
investigation into the 8th grade
instructor, who works for the
Wylie Independent School District.
“It’s the opposite of what must
be taught,” Abbott continued.
“The teacher should be fired.”
The five-panel cartoon in
question, shared online by the
National Fraternal Order of police,
quickly sparked backlash on
social media. It features an image
of a slave ship officer with
his knee on a Black man’s neck,
which evolves over the course of
the cartoon, and ends with a police
officer kneeling on the neck
of a Black man, who is saying “I
can’t breathe.”
This picture shared to Twitter
on August 20, 2020 shows the
cartoon a schoolteacher near
Dallas, Texas allegedly gave to
students as part of a homework
assignment. The goal of the assignment
was for students to
determine if the rights outlined
in the Bill of Rights — including
the First Amendment rights of
protest and free speech — are
still as important in the current
climate.
Wylie Independent School
District spokesperson Ian
Halperin told the Fort Worth
Star-Telegram the assignment
was handed out at Cooper
Junior High to eighth-grade
social studies students as part
of Celebrate Freedom Week,
which covers the Bill of Rights
and the Declaration of Independence.
No specific teacher has been
identified and in an email home
to parents, Cooper Junior High
Principal Shawn Miller indicated
more than one had been involved
in distributing the assignment.
He added that while the lesson
aligned with the Texas Essential
Knowledge and Skills standards,
he understood Abbott’s concerns.
“The teachers wanted to provide
the students with current
events to analyze the Bill of
Rights,” Miller wrote.
The school district, which has
since apologized, in a statement
added it would “comply with the
Governor and the Texas Education
Agency to investigate this
matter as we work together to
rebuild trust in the community.”
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