After a teacher in Tennessee was placed on administrative leave over an assignment concerning a racial slur, students showed their support for the teacher in a walk-out, as per Fox News.
The incident concerns an English teacher at Cane Ridge High School in Antioch, Tennessee, who issued an assignment regarding the play “Fences,” which is about “a black man struggling to provide for his family.” The assignment asked students to write an essay about the racial slur, including the questions “How is it a racist term,” and “how is it used?”
After the assignment was handed out, “some parents found [it] to be inappropriate for their children,” and their demands led to the school placing the teacher on leave. The leave ended on Thursday, but the teacher will still have to “undergo training by the school system’s Diversity and Equity team.”
Students subsequently showed their support through both the walkout and an online petition, with one student declaring that the teacher was “being persecuted for trying to prepare us for the real world.”