Grand Prairie schools blew it with apology for teachers’ ‘pearls and Chucks’ photo
As we’ve learned painfully in recent weeks, politics can make people do stupid things.
Trying to avoid politics at all costs is hazardous, too.
That’s the lesson to take from the kerfuffle in the Grand Prairie school district this week over a few teachers’ effort to honor Vice President Kamala Harris.
The educators at Andrew Jackson Middle School wore strings of pearls and Converse “Chuck Taylor” sneakers, a combination that’s become a Harris signature, on Inauguration Day. A photo of a few of them appeared in an internal district newsletter, and that prompted complaints, apparently, about “political neutrality.” Predictably, next came an apology and then a backlash to that, too.
The whole dust-up is silly. Yes, it’s important for public employees to avoid political statements in their jobs, especially if they are around children. But in this case, with the election long over and years to go until the next one, the clear intent was to celebrate Harris’ historic achievement as the first female vice president and the first of Black and Indian descent.
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The district has a policy that employees remain apolitical. Superintendent Linda Ellis wrote to district staff Friday that “while teaching it is critical that we remain politically neutral. … Where the conflict arose is when we put a picture in the daily message that some staff construed as political.”
But we pay officials such as Ellis and public information officer Sam Buchmeyer, who signed the apology for the photo in the subsequent newsletter, for their judgment. Ellis explained that the apology “was not intended to take away from history or from the picture, but rather to apologize for the impression of some that staff at central office chose to include the picture and did not adhere to political neutrality.”
In this case, it would have been better to explain the difference between electioneering and honoring a milestone that is important to millions of Americans, as Harris’ rise to the vice presidency most certainly is.
And that includes many in the Grand Prairie ISD. An outsized share of the district’s 29,000-plus students are minorities, including 18% who are black. Celebrating the breaking of a barrier is a fine lesson for all students, but especially those who can see themselves reflected in the new vice president.
This hot-stove approach to anything resembling political discourse is a symptom of a larger reluctance to engage. The old saw about never discussing religion and politics in social interactions has its place. But treating government as something that’s mostly off-limits contributes to our polarization. When reasonable people can’t take a moment to recognize a historical achievement such as Harris’ swearing-in, the field is left to extremists who live and breathe politics. And we know where that’s gotten us.
Separating appropriate reverence for history from political rancor is a good civics lesson for everyone, especially schoolchildren. Honoring the moment with “pearls and Chucks” on Inauguration Day was a great example. It’s too bad the Grand Prairie district flunked this one.