School assignment compares police to KKK and slave owners—the community fights back

Fox2Now reported that the political cartoon was assigned to Wylie, Texas' Cooper Junior High students and that the instructions for the assignment stated that it was meant to open a conversation on "First Amendment rights and racial equality protests across the nation during 2020."

Joe Gamaldi, the Vice President of the Fraternal Order of Police, noted that this was a shocking conflation of historical oppression to the law enforcement officers of today. It was reported that Gamaldi reached out to Wylie Independent School District Superintendent David Vinson to state his concern.

Gamaldi wrote "I cannot begin to tell you how abhorrent and disturbing this comparison is, but what is more disturbing is that no adult within your school thought better before sending this assignment to children."

August 20, 2020

He updated his tweet to show that the school district pulled the assignment.

Governor Gregg Abbott also weighed in on the assignment, stating his perspective that the assigning teacher should be released from his position.

August 23, 2020

After pulling the assignment, the school district stated that they were "sorry for any hurt that may have been caused through this lesson. The assignment has been removed, and students will not be expected to complete it."

The teacher was not identified, but the district said that the assignment was not part of their normal curriculum. According to CNN, the Texas Education Agency confirmed to CNN said they don't approve of "divisive images" in the classroom.

CNN shared a screen shot of the instructions for the assignment, which reads "At the core of the First Amendment is our right to assemble and protest. However, not all Americans view this right the same way: some argue that peaceful protests are the only way to create social change, while others do not believe protesting is an effective means to change at all.

"In the midst of the protests following George Floyd's death, some have criticized protestors for creating chaos, other say the violence is instigated by outside extremist groups, and many see police initiating violence at the protests. [Links to The New York Times]. In light is the protests that took place this summer around the United States and around the world, answer the following questions using prior knowledge and online research."

The questions ask what role protest plays in democracy, if protest leads to "real change" in a society/community; and if the protests could "lead to real change in America's treatment of Black and brown people." As regards the political cartoon, the question asks "what is [the cartoon] saying about US history and the death of George Floyd?"

A few things will stand out about this assignment to a careful reader. The first is that the students are asked to answer the questions using "prior knowledge and online research." They are not given materials to use to conduct their research, instead, they are asked, basically, to state their own opinions and to find stuff "online."

"Online" is not a research resource, it is a portal through which we can interface and access information. But not all information online, as we know, is good information. A teacher who is asking these kinds of open ended questions ought to be providing more than questions and vague instructions to basically go find things online, and should instead be providing legitimate research resources, such as books, articles, or primary source materials.

The only primary source material provided is a political cartoon that simplistically equates contemporary policing to a history of racial violence. That cartoon ran in the Arizona Daily Star, and was drawn by David Fitzsimmons.

Fitzsimmons responded to the school district controversy, saying:

"I'm impressed the National Fraternal Order of Police is directing its fury at an illustration revealing how our present horrors are mere echoes of our cruel past… Perhaps it requires too much moral courage, or honest clear-eyed reflection, for the National Fraternal Order of Police to funnel their fury at the few racist police officers who disgrace their oath and their badges by disproportionately murdering African Americans."

What is most surprising is that an eighth grade teacher would provide this obviously biased perspective as the only primary source material for students to use in completing an assignment on the First Amendment right to protest.

The second major problem with the assignment is that, other than George Floyd and the ensuing protest, no other form or instance of American historical protest is listed. It is as though, prior to the protests surrounding Floyd's death, there was nothing, no Civil Rights Movement, no abolitionist movement before that, and that there had been absolutely no progress or change in the racist views and actions of American society.

The National Coalition Against Censorship protested the school's removal of the vague and confusing assignment, and their believe that it could "create dangerous precedent" in that teachers would not be able to present offensive material in the classrooms. This letter is signed by an additional ten organizations across the country, including American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom, Cartoonists Rights Network International, Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Freedom to Read Foundation, Index on Censorship, National Council for the Social Studies, National Council of Teachers of English, PEN America and the Artists at Risk Connection, PEN America Children’s and Young Adult Book Committee.