An art teacher who refu-sed to stop wearing her homemade face mask with Bla-ck Lives Matter slogans was f!red by her charter school on San Antonio’s north side.
Great Hearts Western Hills f!red Lillian White a week before students were set to return to classes. Great Hearts operate numerous charter schools in Texas and Arizona.
“It was really stre-ssful because I have a financial obl!gation to help support my family,” White said to KENS-TV.”It’s also kind of heartbre-aking that this is the kind of – this is the reason that I lost my job.”
White cla!med that she wore the homemade masks for more than a week in July without any tro-uble. The masks read “Bl-ack Lives Matter” and “Silence is V!olence.”
“For about a week and a half I was wearing these masks and no one said anything. A couple of the other teachers came up and asked for some if I had any extras and I made them some,” she explained. White says she received a text message from the assistant principal telling her to stop wearing the mask because they didn’t want to discuss the political climate around the parents.
“This is human rights and it should be something that is promoted at our school. It’s an excuse to not talk about it by saying this is politics, talk about it on your own time,” White said. “It’s just an excuse because they’re uncomfortable with the conversation.” White said that despite being f!red, and because of it, she is still advocating for an “an-ti-rac!sm ac-tion plan” at the school.
‘We stand with the Bl-ack community’: The school released a statement about the incident but offered few additional details. “Great Hearts respects the privacy of all current and former employees and as a result does not issue a public comment on specific personnel matters. On the question related to face coverings, Great Hearts ena-cted, in this unprecedented pan*emic environment, a policy that faces coverings have no external messages.
This policy was authored by school leaders and teachers in service to the learning environment of our classrooms,” the statement read. “We stand with the Bla-ck community and all who are undergoing,” the statement continued, in part. “Great Hearts deplores bigotry and its cru-shing effe-cts on all those subjected to it. Great Hearts is committed to an America where rac!sm, v!olence, and injustice do not happen because such acts find no home in the hearts of a great people.”
This Article First Published On THEBLAZE