GA: Teacher Fired, Book Suppressed, And It's Just Bullshit

The story of  Katherine Rinderle has dragged out over the summer and has now come to a predictable and yet unjustifiable conclusion. This is just wrong.

The short version of the story is that Rinderle read Scott Stuart's "My Shadow Is Purple" to her fifth graders, after they selected it for their March book. A parent complained. The Cobb County School District suspended her and the superintendent announced a recommendation to terminate her. A tribunal appointed by the board recommended that she not be fired. The board just fired her anyway.  

This is a bullshit decision.

Was this one of those graphic books with blatant displays of sex stuff? No. This is the most bland damn thing you could hand a kid. I would read it to my six year olds without hesitation. 

A child plays with action figures and dolls, likes dancing and sports and ponies and planes and trains and glitter, and, in the climactic event, wants to go to the school dance in an outfit that has a suit-ish top and a skirt-ish bottom. Discouraged by the insistence that they must choose either blue or pink at the dance, the purple-shadowed child decidesd to leave, but then an assortment of friends declare their shadows are a wide variety of colors, and a happy ending ensues. "No color's stronger and no color's weak."

That's it. That's the book. (I've attached a read-aloud video at the bottom so you can see for yourself.) There's nothing about sex, barely a mention of gender, and the message is simply that there are other ways to be beyond stereotypical male or female roles. 

That's the book that this woman lost her job over. 

Georgia has, of course, a "divisive concepts" law with appropriately vague language so that teachers can live in fear that they could lose their jobs over anything that some parent thinks is divisive and disturbing. Meanwhile, the boardwas trying to argue its bullshit decision, by hinting that Rinderle is a big old troublemaker:

Without getting into specifics of the personnel investigation, the District is confident that this action is appropriate considering the entirety of the teacher’s behavior and history. However, as this matter is ongoing, further comment is unavailable. The District remains committed to strictly enforcing all Board policy, and the law.

Sure. Pro tip: if you're going to fire someone over This One Thing because they've also done a bunch of Other Bad Things, then fire them over the Other Bad Things. Otherwise, it looks pretty much like you've got a petty grudge bug up your butt and the current firing is just bullshit.

So Georgia's teachers have been sent a clear message about staying in line and not bringing up anything remotel;y controversial ever.

And now the children of Cobb County in particular and Georgia in general have been sent an important message-- if you're different, that's not okay, and if someone suggests that it's okay, well, that's illegal. Shame on Cobb County's school board. Shame on the state of Georgia. And if you're so sure that these kind of reading restrictions are only about protecting children from graphic pornography, take a look at this and think again.