Florida director criticized for calling the Holocaust a "belief"

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The Palm Beach Post last week told the story of a director from Boca Raton, Florida, who had told a mother that he had to be cautious when talking about the l & # 39; Holocaust, because some parents did not believe it.

This story has turned into a point of national shock, and today US Senator Rick Scott of Florida has said that the principal should have been fired rather than reassigned.

In an email in April, the director of Spanish River High School, William Latson, responded to a mother who had asked how the school was teaching the Holocaust. While Latson stated that the school had "a variety of activities" for Holocaust education, he also stated that these lessons were "not imposed on the students." individuals, because we all have the same rights but not all the same beliefs.

The perplexed mother replied, "The Holocaust is a factual and historical event. This is not a right or a belief. "

As the Palm Beach Post reports:

But the main veteran has doubled. "Not everyone believes that the Holocaust took place," he wrote, according to e-mail records obtained by The Post via a request for public registries. "And you have your thoughts, but we are a public school and all of our parents do not have the same beliefs."

He then added that as an educator he had "the role of remaining politically neutral, but supporting all school groups".

"I can not say that the Holocaust is a factual and historical event, because I can not do it as an employee of the school district," Latson wrote.

After the mother reached out, the district spoke to Latson, but did not express any formal blame at that time. All of this changed after the history of the Palm Beach Post, which caused a lot of outrage and a change in the district's attitude.

A few days ago, Latson was reassigned to the district stating, "Her leadership has become a major distraction for the school community." Latson is apologetic for choosing her words.

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Some lawmakers in Florida say that is not enough, especially Senator Scott who tweeted, "This director should have been fired, not just reassigned. There is no excuse for what he has expressed. There is no excuse for the denial of the Holocaust. There is no excuse for anti-Semitism of any kind. "

But is the absurd commentary of this principal a symptom of the fear among educators of triggering extremist parents who can then become ballistic?

Even the mother in this case told the Palm Beach Post that she did not believe that Latson was anti-Semitic, but was afraid to deal with parents who did not believe that the Holocaust had occurred.

Directors increasingly say that they can no longer rely on the central office to support them if the parents complain, even if they represent a marginal point of view. Parents can bring their complaints against a teacher or school on Facebook or Twitter and, suddenly, a Georgia District is launching angry calls from Survivalists from Idaho and Oregon.

The growing number of challenges to historical and scientific facts in the classroom comes from the same place – the growing tendency to treat accepted and easily provable facts as a topic of debate. The facts are victims of ideologies.

Educators tell me that they need to worry about the mention of "global warming" for fear of endangering parents who do not accept that climate change is a reality.

In 2004, the Superintendent of Public Schools of Georgia, in the hope of avoiding controversy, removed the word "evolution" from the new science curriculum.

But superintendent Kathy Cox sparked much more controversy after substituting "evolution" for the term "evolution," citing the fact that she did not want people to conclude "we are going to teach the sort of thing that goes from the man to the man. . She quickly restored the evolution of Georgian norms after her Republican counterparts at the Gold Dome declared that the state's reputation was catastrophic.

To what extent should school districts support parents who treat proven facts as opinions?

Biblical literalists continue to argue that creationism must be put on an equal footing with class evolution. One is a religious belief, the other is the basic idea in all life sciences which, as science advocate and educator Bill Nye says, "reveals the mysteries of everything from bumblebees to human origins. passing through our place in the universe.

Your thoughts?