NJ Education Report

This is a letter from David Cohen, a Middletown High School parent, in response to the school board’s decision to remove “politically charged images” put up by teachers, one supporting Black Lives Matter and another supporting Trump.

It’s a pathetic sad day in Middletown for the students at High School North. The student body was treated to a cowardly fascist victory of censorship over an inclusive, thought provoking message posted on their science teacher’s desk, meant to educate and provoke understanding and civility in these trying times. At worst it offered an important teachable dissenting point of view.

A teacher should be able teach without being censored by politically motivated parents or others that are up in arms because it goes against their political leanings. They cared nothing about the MAGA flag that hung in one of the other classrooms. For millions of Americans, MAGA is a politically loaded slogan that invokes division and hatred, fear and loathing.

This teacher’s message caught the Middletown censorship brigades keen attention to censor, bully and shut down any dissenting opinion, regardless of truth or merit. This bald-faced hypocrisy would be hilarious if not so frighteningly sad and tragic in its naked political machinations. Sadly, the Middletown Censorship Brigades Handmaids Tale point of view prevailed ending with Orwellian censorship carried out predictably by the Middletown Township governing authority. The grand compromise was to censor both teachers, removal of the alleged politically indoctrinating words and the MAGA flag in a false-hearted attempt at even handedness. What’s next, burning books? Not to mention how this narrow-mindedness ill prepares these kids for college.

Are these teachers words what they’re all up in arms about: “In this class, we believe Black lives matter, woman’s rights are human rights, no human is illegal, science is real, love is love, kindness is everything.” It’s 2020, wholly geez, 2020. Here’s a quote from over two-thousand years ago: “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” – Plato

David Cohen

Middletown