The Kentucky witch hunts have begun. Estill County teacher is the first victim.
As they do every few decades, the witch hunts have begun.
Tuesday morning, Valarie Honeycutt Spears told the story of Tyler Clay Morgan, a substitute music teacher at West Irvine Intermediate School who resigned over a message to students on his classroom board. Tyler Clay Morgan confirmed to the Herald-Leader that he wrote a message on his classroom board that said, “You Are Free to Be Yourself With Me. You Matter.” The message included a rainbow flag and rainbow colors.
Estill County Superintendent Jeff Saylor told Honeycutt the issue was not so much the sign as conversations in the classroom that followed, which went “far beyond the music curriculum.”
This all happened last week, and there was so much talk in Estill County and on social media — including death threats — that Morgan felt he had to resign.
This seems extreme. Sometimes classroom discussions do wander off curriculum. Sometimes teachers show their students that they support them without “indoctrinating” them into anything. It doesn’t usually end in resignation. Sometimes a rainbow is just a rainbow.
We are in a time of particular political hysteria, fed by social media, disinformation, fear and anxiety on every front. I’m a lot more worried about the planet burning up and World War III than I am about my children getting indoctrinated by a rainbow, but then again, fear is rarely rational.
Here in Kentucky, the witch hunts have begun, and Mr. Morgan is the first victim.
Every time a marginalized group makes any progress, there’s always a backlash. Right now, it appears that the realization that Black people are in fact killed at the hands of police has led to a moral panic over teaching children about injustice. Rights for LGBTQ people, which seemed to calm down after the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision in 2015, has been fanned into another maelstrom over transgender rights. Now we’ve got the “Don’t Say Gay” law in Florida, which says teachers may not instruct on sexual orientation or gender identity in grades kindergarten through third grade. Surely it won’t be long before some bright Kentucky legislator decides to adopt it.
In her Tuesday column in the New York Times, Michelle Goldberg pointed out that these freak outs are cyclical with the current concern over children driven by cynical politicians and people who have normalized the conspiratorial theories of QAnon adherents, convinced pedophiles are lurking inside every county Democratic Party office.
“The ‘satanic panic’ of the 1980s, a frenzy of accusations of ritual child abuse that resulted in the conviction of dozens of innocent people, was driven in part by deep anxiety over working women and day care,” Goldberg wrote. “Four decades later, the country is once again in a moral panic about monstrous things being done to children, with teachers and entertainers accused of ‘grooming’ them for abuse. And once again, it’s driven in large part by unease over rapidly changing gender roles and norms.”
Between COVID, war, global warming and cynical politicians trying to stay in office with dog whistle legislation, kids today are facing unprecedented fear and anxiety. One adult telling them they matter — whether they’re LGBTQ, Black or different in any way — could make an enormous difference in their lives. The adults in the room are supposed to be ... adult. They need to grow up and act like it.
This story was originally published April 5, 2022 at 11:08 AM.
