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School Principal Gets the Boot Because She Was Critical of BLM Pressures in a Facebook Post

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Tiffany Riley, the principal of Windsor High School in Windsor, Vermont, faced the wrath of the PC police after failing to fully and unequivocally endorse Black Lives Matter in a Facebook post earlier this month. The backlash was so severe that she ended up losing her job.

According to the Valley News, Riley’s post June 10 made it clear that she believes that “black lives matter,” but she added a caveat that caught the ire of the leftist mob: “I DO NOT agree with coercive measures taken to get this point across; some of which are falsified in an attempt to prove a point.”

“I do not think that people should be made to feel they have to choose black race over human race,” Riley wrote, adding: “While I understand the urgency to feel compelled to advocate for black lives, what about our law enforcement?”

She also declared that “just because I don’t walk around with a BLM sign should not mean I’m a racist.”

Sadly, according to many in Windsor, including the school board, her failure to “walk around with a BLM sign” does make her a racist.

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The Mount Ascutney School Board, “uniformly appalled” by her words, voted unanimously to place Riley on paid leave June 14.

The district’s superintendent, David Becker, said the district will work to put together a “mutually agreed upon severance package” with Riley and justified the decision to let her go by saying, “It’s clear that the community has lost faith in her ability to lead.”

Did Tiffany Riley deserve to lose her job because of her comments?

Ridiculously, Becker said he thought Riley’s Facebook page was hacked and indicated that he fully agreed with the criticism that her post was “racist.”

“I felt like a post like that, with those kinds of racial overtones and what I define as pretty much outright racist in my values system, she would have never posted that,” he said.

The fact that Riley’s community would take such umbrage at her comments should not come as a surprise. Windsor County supported Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump by a 2-1 ratio in 2016, and the state as a whole keeps electing democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders.

In an era when American education has become just another arm of the left, Riley’s circumstances are hardly unique. Eric Thompson, a professor who taught at Moreno Valley College in California, was dismissed from his position after daring to sympathize with traditional viewpoints on marriage, gender and sexuality.

In addition to causing professors to lose their jobs, holding conservative positions can also have consequences for students who hold prominent positions on campus.

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Earlier this month, the president of the Florida State University Student Senate was removed from his post after daring to criticize Black Lives Matter and other liberal organizations deemed heroic by the radical left.

Despite the fact that Riley went out of her way to empathize with the point of view of her opponents and offered analysis consistent with the views of many Americans, she lost her job. What happened to Riley could have a chilling effect that will cause many people to think twice about posting anything critical of Black Lives Matter — a leftist movement dressed up as opposition to racism.

That’s the whole goal.

With Riley’s firing, diversity of opinion in education continues to shrink.

According to a 2016 study from Econ Journal Watch, liberal professors outnumber their conservative counterparts by a ratio of 11.5-1 in the departments of economics, history, journalism, law and psychology at “40 leading U.S. universities.”

This liberal uniformity extends into K-12 education, with research conducted by Verdant Labs finding that “there are 97 Democrats for every three Republicans” teaching English and “87 Democrats for every 13 Republicans” among math and science teachers.

Riley’s situation is saddening but not surprising. Hopefully, what happened to her will launch a renewed movement to ensure freedom of speech in education for teachers and students alike, from kindergarten through college.

Adam Carolla and Dennis Prager’s documentary “No Safe Spaces” is definitely a good start.

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Ryan holds a bachelor of arts in political science from Rhode Island College. In addition to participating in the National Journalism Center’s internship program, he has written for several conservative publications.
Ryan holds a bachelor of arts in political science from Rhode Island College. In addition to participating in the National Journalism Center’s internship program, he has written for several conservative publications.




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