A high-school football coach in Massachusetts who has become a victim of “cancel culture” is fighting back.
Represented by the government watchdog Judicial Watch, David Flynn is suing three officials in the Dedham, Massachusetts, public school district after he was fired for objecting to a curriculum in his daughter’s history class.
“Cancel culture has come to high-school football,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Coach Flynn was fired for exercising his constitutional rights to object as a citizen and father to an extremist and racially inflammatory school curriculum in his child’s history class.”
The case in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts names as defendants Supt. Michael J. Welch, Principal Jim Forrest and Athletic Director Stephen Traister.
Judicial Watch summarized the case: “In January 2021, Flynn, who had been the head football coach at Dedham High School since 2011, was called into a meeting with Welch as well as the DHS principal and athletic director. At the meeting, Welch handed Flynn one of the emails he had written to the Dedham School Committee members and informed him that one of the committee members asked Welch, ‘What are we going to do about this?’ At the end of the meeting Flynn was told that they, ‘were going in a different direction’ with the football program. Minutes later, the superintendent, high school principal, and athletic director released a public statement, stating that Flynn was removed as head football coach because he ‘expressed significant philosophical differences with the direction, goals, and values of the school district.'”
Flynn and his wife had challenged the district’s politically correct agenda after their daughter’s seventh-grade history class, World Geography and Ancient History I, taught issues of race, gender, stereotypes, prejudices, discrimination and politics.
According to the lawsuit: “In one assignment, Plaintiff’s daughter was asked to consider various ‘risk factors’ and ‘mitigating factors’ that two people – one identified as ‘white’ and the other identified as ‘black’ – purportedly might use to assess each other on a city street. Included among the various factors were skin color, gender, age, physical appearance, and attire. ‘Black,’ ‘aggressive body language’ and ‘wrong neighborhood’ were among the ‘risk factors’ purportedly assessed by the person identified as ‘white.’ ‘White’ and ‘Police officer’ were among the ‘risk factors’ purportedly assessed by the person identified as ‘black.'”
The complaint contends Flynn was exercising his right as a citizen to raise concerns about the curriculum being changed “to include biased coursework on politics, race, gender equality, and diversity.”
Those expressions were protected by the First Amendment, yet Flynn was removed fired.
The Flynns repeatedly tried to obtain help to res0lve the issues but ultimately removed their children from the school.
Flynn argued the superintendent “has had the opportunity to make sure the Dedham teachers conduct themselves as professionals and to teach the courses objectively and without biased opinions.”
“He chose not to,” Flynn said. “I believe that the real men and women in the world are the ones who have the ability to compromise, especially in extremely controversial situations. Compromise allows people to experience life as a team. This is where unity brings individual pride together and relationships begin to strengthen. I believe all relationships are based on compromise. The Superintendent was not willing to compromise. I explained to him that if the teacher teaches the course objectively and removes the BLM logo from the class, people will soon get over the fact that the class was purposely created without notifying parents and without having a visible course curriculum, syllabus and learning objective. Apparently, it does not mean much to him that the Dedham Public School System is losing two wonderful students.”
The case seeks damages as well as a jury trial.
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