Sacramento, California, teacher Julianne Benzel was placed on paid leave for questioning whether students for life would be allowed to walk out of class the way students for gun control were.
Her questions were viewed as “anti-abortion” by some, which resulted in complaints and, finally, in Benzel being placed on paid leave.
This all occurred the same week that students across the country walked out of classrooms for 17 minutes in a show of solidarity for gun control.
Fox News Insider quoted Benzel explaining her position: “[If schools] are going to allow one group of students to get up during class and walk out to protest one issue, would they still give the same courtesy to another group of students who wanted to get up and walk out to protest? And I used the example of abortion.”
The school district defended its decision, saying, “The teacher was not penalized or placed on leave based on her viewpoints. …The district can clarify that the action was taken due to complaints from parents and students involving the teacher’s communications regarding… the student-led remembrance activities.”
Benzel was asked to come back to the school Friday but she demurred, instead deciding to take a day off and rest up to return to class next week.
She observed, “I teach over 120 students and [administrators] took two students and one parent’s complaint and … took that minuscule evidence, did not corroborate it with any other students or parents and basically targeted me.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.
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