Katie Rinderle is the first known public school teacher to be fired
under Georgia's trio of censorship laws.
Friend,
Katie Rinderle is the first known public school teacher to be fired
under Georgia's trio of censorship laws
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passed in 2022.
The grounds for her firing? Rinderle read the international
best-selling children's book My Shadow is Purple
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to her fifth grade gifted class at Due West Elementary School in Cobb
County, Georgia.
Rinderle had recently purchased the book by Australian author Scott
Stuart at the school's Scholastic Book Fair. Before she read it,
the students voted on a variety of books Rinderle offered and
overwhelmingly chose My Shadow is Purple, which was nominated for a
2023 Australian Book Industry Award. After the reading, the class
discussed the book's message of acceptance of oneself and others
and embracing diverse and complex identities and
experiences. Watch Rinderle talk about her unjust termination in
a video interview with the SPLC here.
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Georgia passed a trio of censorship laws last year - while
Rinderle is the first known teacher to be fired under the laws, she
will not be the last to be terminated, advocates say. These laws are
the Protect Students' Rights Act, commonly known as the
"divisive concepts" law; a "Parents' Bill of
Rights;" and one known as the "harmful to minors
law," which allows for the removal or restriction of materials
parents deem "pornographic" or otherwise harmful.
Together, the laws censor class discussion, give parents the right to
refuse instruction they disagree with and ban "offensive"
reading materials from school libraries.
To this day, the district has never answered Rinderle's main
question: What exactly does "divisive concepts" mean?
"School districts label certain topics
'pornographic' and 'divisive,'" Rinderle
said. "Yet when I asked [school administrators] what
'divisive concepts' means, they said they didn't
know and told me they would research it. They never told me."
Rinderle isn't taking the situation lying down. She is working
with her union, the Georgia Association of Educators and the Goodmark
Law Firm to fight her unjust termination.
"It's so important to teach children to be supportive of
each other, true to each other and to themselves," Rinderle
said. "The lives, experiences and self-identities of students
should be validated and celebrated. Children are especially harmed
when they are not made to feel loved, appreciated and validated for
who they are and their uniqueness."
Sincerely,
Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center
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