The following is a statement from an NIC student who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of judgment, retaliation or worse. They reached out to the Sentinel in an effort for their voice to be heard.
“I cannot rationalize the decision to remove my teacher for a political opinion on personal social media. I’m going to be honest it feels like surveillance for an employer to watch what an employee does unrelated to the job. I have known teachers who expressed more politics in class and out and still managed to make students feel comfortable and even encouraged to disagree. We are human and we are allowed to be enraged.
And I’m enraged because I feel wronged. I have experienced teachers who hurt me and this one never did. Why should I not be able to attend the classes of a professor who explained to me dots I never connected, and helped me understand my other classes better? I have witnessed much worse than a teacher expressing rage off the job.
I find it difficult to not interpret this situation as politically biased. What my teacher said shouldn’t be misrepresented as supporting political violence. It is so clearly an expression of violence in general within the United States. To misrepresent it as such is to ignore the debate in American politics of who is responsible for extreme acts of aggression and yet condemn someone else’s interpretation of it.
I don’t claim you should agree, I claim you should allow others to disagree with you. Students suffer when schools fight teachers and I’m asking to please stop fighting mine. Who are you protecting because it’s not students?”
-Enraged Student
According to the Coeur d’Alene Press, NIC trustee Brad Corkill announced on Monday that the unnamed teacher no longer works for NIC. For the sake of privacy, he would not say if that was voluntary. If you wish to learn more information on this controversial situation, please refer to this article and stay tuned for any updates.
Do you have something important to say? Do you feel passionate about something at NIC that you wish to share? Feel free to write to our editors at sentinel@nic.edu.
