Another Racist Florida Teacher Suspended

• Steve
• March 9, 2018
• 0 Comment
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David Swinyar has been suspended for allegedly making racist statements in his classroom about African American students.  Swinyar is the second Florida teacher in less than ten days to be accused of publicly making racist statements about blacks.

Swinyar allegedly made references to people being like niggers if they used certain language and told the white girls not to date African American boys because “they aren’t worth it”.   Swinyar was also reported to have said that he attended a black church and made fun of the black pastor’s preaching style.

The maligned teacher has been suspended for ten days without pay and upon returning to work will be assigned a position that has no contact with students.  The school board does not look like they will be immediately firing Swinyar, but they will probably not renew his contract before the new school year effectively ending his employment.

Just like Dayanna Voltich, Swinyar is a dangerous person to be have access to young teens who are impressionable, with the ability to spew racist rhetoric for any length of time.  Teenage kids can be hormonal and volatile and hearing someone use such divisive and hateful speech could create a very dangerous situation for an unsuspecting student.

I believe many of us accept we will not be able to rid this country of racism.  No matter how hard we try there will be ignorant and hate filled people that we can’t change.  But what we shouldn’t accept is when those people what to use our school system as a way to preach hate.  Making sweeping generalizations about a group of people because of an immutable characteristic such as skin color is not healthy for any community and it is not the purpose of the educational system.  Our current educational system has problems that stem as far back to Jim Crow and segregation, but going backwards and allowing blatant racism back in the classroom is not the way to deal with those problems.

A Florida teacher has been suspended after his school district concluded he repeatedly used the N-word in class, and told his 7th and 8th graders not to date African-Americans “because they are not worth it,” among other violations.

David Swinyar, who says he is white in his personnel file, teaches math at Kernan Middle School in Jacksonville. The school has 1,148 students — 22.6 percent of whom are African-American.
Just after lunch on October 6, 2017, a student told a school board investigator that their teacher, Swinyar, and students were discussing relationships.
“If your boyfriend says bad things to you and/or treats you wrong, that means he’s acting like a n—–,” Swinyar said according to student testimony in a school district investigative report. “You all should not be dating all these different African-American boys because they are not worth it.”

In what appears to be a separate incident covered in the investigative report, students said Swinyar made other racist remarks in August 2017.
According to the report, Swinyar used the N-word during an argument with a student.
“If my daughter was dating someone who used the ‘f’ word, I wouldn’t have any respect for that n—–,” a student recalled Swinyar saying, according to an investigative report. Another student then confronted Swinyar about using the racial slur; he denied using it.
The school counselor, quoting a student, reported that Swinyar said, “If [Swinyar’s daughter] was dating someone and that ‘n’ said the ‘f’ word, I would beat him up.”
After he was confronted by a student, other students said Swinyar said, “I would never say that, but if I did, I am sorry.”

Swinyar reportedly said he attended an African-American church, and students said he made fun of the preacher’s preaching style. The district also concluded in the report that Swinyar made inappropriate comments to students, such as calling some of them “dumb.”
CNN reached out to Swinyar for comment, but has not yet received a response.
Florida’s teacher union, the Florida Education Association, declined to comment on the situation Thursday.
“One of the FEA’s core values is to ‘value and respect the diversity among all individuals,'” said FEA communications director Sharon Nesvig, when asked for the organization’s general policy on racist language in the classroom. “So, clearly FEA is opposed to using racial slurs and derogatory language inside or outside the classroom.”
Swinyar received a 10-day unpaid suspension for the behaviors documented in the district’s investigation. CNN affiliate WFOX-WJAX reports Swinyar will also get a letter of reprimand and a mandatory referral to the Employee Assistance Program.
After this story was published, CNN was sent a letter Duval County Schools Superintendent Patricia Willis sent to the school board members on Thursday afternoon. That letter further outlined what the district plans to do with Swinyar.

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