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Monday, September 9, 2002 12:10 a.m.

Woman of 'niggardly' intelligence causes teacher trouble

One way or the other, it's not the complainant who's required to Jump Jim Crow, but the teacher who was so misguided as to treat her students as students, not stool pigeons for the PC Gestapo.

Her reward has been a concentrated programme of humiliation from ass-covering superiors:

• "a letter from principal Susan Hahn stated that [the teacher] used poor judgment";

  [certainly, her judgement was poor if she thought her teaching a regular English word would be backed up by her bosses!]

• "The letter....also instructed his mother to send an apology to her students' parents, a step she took last week."

  [apologise for what? for the kid's mother being a moron - or political operator?]

• "The letter......also admonished Stephanie Bell, who is white [surprise, surprise!], for lacking sensitivity to the school's diverse population and not being aware of cultural differences..."

  ['let the colored folk alone in peace with their ignorance' seems to be the message - the KKK and NAACP joining hands at last! - and, Heavens to Betsy, let's leave Huckleberry Finn off the curriculum: not exactly niggardly with the niggers, was Samuel L!]

• "The letter.....would go in Stephanie Bell's personnel file within five days."

  [Go back through the Wilmington School Board records fifty years, there are probably similar letters about Negro teachers being so Un-American as to mention the 14th Amendment to their class.]

• "failure to comply with the directives in the letter, which included sensitivity training, would lead to further action."

  ['Sensitivity training' seems to mean, 'assume the Klan stereotypes are correct' - Ms Akwana Walker does set an example in that regard.]

• "[the teacher] agreed not to use the word again with her students."

  [One whole word expunged: a good day's work for 'educator' Ms Susan Hahn.]

It would be comforting to learn that the teacher's colleagues in the city - of all races - had rallied round her in the cause of vindicating her right to teach her subject, and her students' right to be lifted out of ignorance. But that would be to live in a dream world as far from reality as that offered by Ms Hahn to those of her students who are less than lily-white.

[Of course, the story leaves out the parts that would make it make sense. Who, exactly, is Ms Hahn? And the mother? What connection do they have, for instance, with (current or prospective) elected representatives or pressure groups? Is there a history of this sort of occurrence in the school? Is this payback for the teacher failing to genuflect to politicians or pressure groups in the past?

In brief, cui bono? I'm pretty sure 'niggardly' is being used in classrooms up and down the country every day, without teachers risking their jobs - just why is this particular teacher taking a ride?]

As the story stands, no one wins: the teacher is humiliated, and the child and mother - well, I'd guess that, round Wilmington right now, pretty much every joke is a 'niggard' joke. Or something close. Only consolation: they're probably knee deep in water-melons.....

[For the hapless DC Mayor Williams' 'niggardly' episode, see here.]