Daily Archives: June 20, 2024

"Jesus himself never condemned slavery,"one Florida mansaid to defend the honor of Confederate leader Robert E. Lee during a March 2021 school board meeting in Jacksonville. "In fact, he said, slaves have an obligation to obey their master," the outraged white maninsisted.

A crowd had pounced to keep the students of Robert E. Lee High School, 70% of whom are Black, from changing the name to something less Confederacy-honoring.

"I was taught that the chiefs of the tribes in Africa sold their people into slavery," an angry white woman said as the white people behind her nodded vigorously. "So don't blame Robert E. Lee. Maybe you should be after your ancestors."

Alarmed by what she was hearing,Amy Donofrio decided to do something.She was a teacher at the school, located in Duval County, which has since been renamed Riverside High School. She knew how sentiments like the ones shared at the school board meeting made her students feel. "Students made it clear that they were dealing with a lot," Donofrio told Salon. "They were walking into our schools facing racism, frankly, from every corner."

Years before, Donofrio had helped her students start a group called EVACMovement. Once invited to speak at the White House with then-President Barack Obama, by 2021, students in the group were eager to strip their school of a name honoring a Confederate general who personally held over 200 people in slavery.

Jacksonville, Florida protest against changing the name of Robert E. Lee High School (Photo courtesy of Amy Donofrio)So Donofrio took photos and videos from the school board meeting, including another one of a man asking, "If this high school is having problems, how long has it been predominantly African-American?" And she expressed concerns to the administration that such comments hurt her students. She would soon be removed from her classroom, publicly targeted by the Republican state government under Gov. Ron DeSantis, eventually fired, and threatened with having her teaching license stripped entirely.

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But while Donofrio's life has been chaos in the years since the DeSantis administration made her a target in their "war on woke," she eventually prevailed. A Florida administrative judge just ruled in Donofrio's favor regarding the dispute that created the pretext to harass her: A Black Lives Matter flag she hung in her classroom.

Donofrio had been hanging the flag for some time before the school board meeting. "Especially as a white woman," she told Salon, it was important to let students "know that they're cared about." The flag, she said, was a simple way to make them "feel safe" so they could "get an education." Administrators had been complaining to her about it but had no policy to point to in order to justify taking it down. But after the school board meeting, the pressure on Donofrio intensified. Pointing to a new policy barring teachers from trying "to influence students to support or oppose any candidate, party or issue," the administration ordered the flag removed. When she refused, they took it down for her and pulled her out of the classroom, while they investigated whether she had violated school rules.

The situation quickly escalated. A petition in support of Donofrio circulated by students quickly amassed thousands of signatures and the Southern Poverty Law Center sued the district on her behalf. But the DeSantis administration was determined to make Donofrio the face of "woke" teachers their administration was stirring up fear and hatred towards. In May of 2021,Florida Department of Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran singled out Donofrio during a speech at Hillsdale College, which, as Kathryn Joyce has reported for Salon, is the epicenter of the Christian right's assault on public education.Complaining about "an entire classroom memorialized to Black Lives Matter," Corcoran falsely declared, "We made sure she was terminated." In truth, Donofrio still had her job, but was "assigned to paid, non-teaching duties," according to the school district's official statement. Before the summer was over, however the school board filled Corcoran's wish, firing Donofrio and settling her lawsuit out of court. But that was not the end of her woes. Within days of her firing, the state opened another investigation, this time into whether Donofrio's teacher's license should be revoked entirely.

Donofrio feels she was targeted in order to create "an environment of fear" for teachers across Florida. DeSantis was soon promoting a series of policies, such as the "don't say gay" lawand the "stop woke" act aimedat prohibiting discussions of racism and sexual diversity that Republicans claimed was inappropriate for public school students. Critics of these bills pointed out that the language about what is and isn't allowed was vague, which Donofrio argues was on purpose. "If somebody high up doesn't like you or disagrees with, you watch out," she said. "The repercussions can stretch into a lot of different parts of your life."

DeSantis, for his part, denied that the bills were meant to lead to widespread book banning, harassment of LGBTQ teachers or students, or the end of teaching about segregation or slavery in history classes. But that is exactly what happened in much of the state. Educational programs about the civil rights movement were canceled. Teachers were forced to lock up their entire classroom library. Books about slavery, the Holocaust, and even 9/11 were banned. Even the dictionary was banned in one school district. The bans and harassment spread to other states. A 2022 analysis from the Washington Post found that Donofrio was not alone: Over 160 teachers were driven out of their jobs by Republican-led attacks on public education.

All of these machinations helped DeSantis raise his national profile as a right-wing culture warrior but did not help him win the Republican presidential nomination. Despite spending $160 million to defeat Donald Trump, the Florida governor only got 21% of the Iowa caucus votes, and quit the race shortly thereafter. His "war on woke" turned out to be so impractical that he ended up signing another bill in Aprillimiting non-parents to one challenge per month.

Donofrio, meanwhile, was still fighting to keep her teaching license. Finally, she got a hearing before an administration judge in February and a decision in April. The judge ruled for Donofrio on the issue of the Black Lives Matter flag. Donofrio's "intent to affirm and support her students was clear, and she had a successful history of promoting the physical and emotional well-being of her minority students," the judge wrote. Instead, the judge noted "the School environment became hostile after administration removed the flag," because the principal "had to work hard, meeting with students and making extra efforts to assure students that he supported them and that their lives did indeed matter to him." In June, the final hearing was held, and the DeSantis government lost again: Donofrio's teaching license remains intact.

"I feel vindicated, but I also feel sad," Donofrio told Salon. Sad, she explained, because "a lot of teachers have been leaving Florida and quitting schools in Florida because of all of this."

"I think our kids here are worth fighting for," she added, noting that ultimately, teachers alone cannot solve this problem. "We can't just encourage teachers to stand up and stand with our kids without giving them the resources to do it and survive."

Donofrio isn't sure what's next for her. She hasn't gotten her job back at the now-Riverside High School. Still, she said, she's feeling "hopeful" after this legal victory. "I also want teachers to look at the case," she said, "and realize if you stand up for what's right, you can win too. It is possible."

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Florida Republicans terrorized a teacher for her Black Lives Matter flag but now she's prevailed - Salon

Amy Donofrio [left] awaits the Education Practices Commissions decision. [Nandhini Srinivasan / The Tributary]

A former Duval County teacher won her fight Thursday to keep her teaching license after the state targeted her for displaying a Black Lives Matter flag in a case that drew national attention.

Amy Donofrio, a former high school teacher, successfully argued the state had no right to go after her for the flag, despite Gov. Ron DeSantis administration targeting her as a public example of its war against what it has said is liberal influence in public schools.

An independent panel unanimously voted to reject any discipline related to the flag and instead accept a written reprimand not the probation and fine sought by the state of Donofrio.

As the district was considering changing the name of Robert E. Lee High School, students brought facemasks to her classroom that said, Robert E. Lee was a gang member. The panel issued the reprimand because of those masks but rejected the states attempt to discipline her for displaying the Black Lives Matter flag.

Donofrio celebrated her success in beating the state, but she and her lawyer said they may still appeal the written reprimand.

Donofrios case marks a failure for the DeSantis administrations efforts to punish teachers it has claimed were violating state standards by allegedly pushing liberal ideology in classrooms. Instead, an administrative judge found Donofrio had not compromised her students with the flag or masks.

The Florida Department of Education did not respond to repeated calls and emails with questions on whether the state would change any policies due to this case.

Donofrio woke up Thursday to notifications that someone had, again, left threats on her Facebook page, the latest in what she said has become standard for her in the three years ever since the state called her out for flying the Black Lives Matter flag.

As she drove that morning to Tampa, where the Education Practices Commission would decide to accept an administrative judges findings that she shouldnt have her license suspended, she recalled what brought her to Jacksonville in the first place.

I always wanted to be a teacher, nothing else, she told a reporter as she drove. And I did for 13 years what I loved to do what I felt like I was born to do.

She had taught at what was then called Robert E. Lee High School for nearly a decade. As a teacher, she became an advocate for her students, advising a class she called the EVAC Movement. In that role, she earned local and national plaudits from Republicans and Democrats alike for her work against gang violence and for racial justice.

READ: Court hearings set stage as Florida pursues Jacksonville teachers license over Black Lives Matter flag

That changed after the 2020 protests in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. In the year after Floyds murder, long after shed already begun displaying a Black Lives Matter flag, the district sent a newly drafted memo forbidding employees from displaying flags that supported social movements. The next school day, the schools principal told her to remove the flag or it will be removed for you.

The next day, the district removed her teaching responsibilities and reassigned her to work in a warehouse.

An administrative judge found the principal had given her the option of removing the flag or allowing someone else to remove it.

The state offered no proof, the judge wrote, that Donofrios display of the Black Lives Matter flag, or her refusal to remove it, failed to protect her students from conditions harmful to learning, or their mental or physical health.

DeSantis education commissioner at the time, Richard Corcoran, bragged publicly about Donofrios removal from the classroom saying he had helped orchestrate the districts discipline as part of the states effort to police teachers.

Ive censored or fired or terminated numerous teachers, Corcoran said before telling the story of having Donofrio removed from her classroom.

Donofrio sued the district and settled later that year when the district didnt renew her teaching contract.

But then the Florida Department of Education came after her teachers license, creating a high-profile showdown between DeSantis new conservative standards for teachers, the same standards he would highlight in his unsuccessful presidential run.

Politicians are trying to run up their poll numbers through these completely warrantless and baseless attacks on teachers, said Mark Richard, Donofrios lawyer.

By allowing a Black Lives Matter flag and facemasks that criticized the legacy of Robert E. Lee, the DOE alleged that Donofrio had not made enough effort to protect the student from conditions harmful to learning and/or to the students mental and/or physical health and/or safety. The department also said she had failed to take reasonable precautions to distinguish between her personal views and those of the district.

For three years Donofrio fought the state. Even though she no longer taught at the school district, she believed it was wrong for the state to remove her license and her ability to teach again in the future.

Of course, I would love to teach again, she said. Teachers across the state, she said, are afraid of the Florida Department of Education. Theyre afraid of Gov. DeSantis, to be on his bad side.

At a Duval County courthouse last year, Donofrio and the state put on witnesses and presented their arguments for two days before an administrative judge.

While the judge agreed with Donofrio that the Black Lives Matter flag didnt warrant any discipline, the judge wrote that a written reprimand was appropriate for the facemasks because Donofrio did not do enough to distinguish between her views and the districts views on Robert E. Lee.

The state had requested approval to put her teaching license on probation and issue a fine against her.

I felt like a weight that Ive been carrying for three years was at least partially lifted off of me, Donofrio said after the panel in Tampa accepted the judges recommendations. I felt a sense of some freedom, for the first time in a long time.

However, Donofrio said she may appeal the judges decision for a reprimand because she doesnt want the state to have a precedent that OKs any discipline for other teachers similarly caught in DeSantis crosshairs.

Essentially, the reprimand tells Donofrio that moving forward, if she has an opinion that differs from the districts position, she must make that clear to students, said Mark Richard, her lawyer. We think that was a mistake under the law, and well be considering appealing just that part he added.

Still, he said, on a legal front, this ruling once again affirms that a teacher can teach honestly, that a teacher should not be the victim of these political cultural wars.

Donofrio said ever since DeSantis education commissioner publicized her case, she has been the target of harassment and threats. After one threat, she said, she changed the locks to her home.

The past three years have been by far the hardest years of my life, the years where I have questioned things the most in my whole life, she said. Having her ability to teach taken away from her on top of the harassment, she said, shook her identity. Its shaken the way Ive seen the world.

In addition to going after individual teachers like Donofrio, DeSantis has prioritized a series of laws that have restricted what teachers are allowed to talk about in the classroom.

The STOP WOKE Act in 2022 barred teaching critical race theory and teaching that says people are oppressed based on their race. Another law banned teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity for grades eight and below, and it prohibited teaching that wasnt age-appropriate for high schoolers.

According to the American Library Association, nearly 2,700 books were targeted for restriction or removal in Florida schools and public libraries last year.

While Donofrio has retained her license to teach, it is unclear whether she will be able to do so in Duval County Public Schools. The district did not respond to requests for comment.

Due to an editors error, a prior version of the article incorrectly stated that the school demanded Amy Donofrio remove a Black Lives Matter flag without specifying that she was given the option to remove it herself or allow someone else to do so. The article also inaccurately said that the school demanded she remove facemasks.

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Jacksonville teacher allowed to keep license after Florida targeted her for flying Black Lives Matter flag - The Tributary

In 1903, a Black man walked into an office in a small town in Texas, seeking any news about whether slavery had ended.

The earnest inquiry from the man, who had been forced to labor without pay, came more than 38 years after Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger landed on Galveston Island, Tex., with more than 2,000 federal soldiers to deliver the belated news of freedom to enslaved Black people in Texas. Word of the end of bondage for the more than 250,000 enslaved Black people in the state arrived on June 19, 1865 two years after President Abraham Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation.

Despite the clear instructions in General Order No. 3 and the announcement that day by Grangers men that the people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free, not every enslaved Black person in Texas was freed with that proclamation.

Enslavers across the state resisted the generals order, hiding the news from enslaved Black people. Many Black people were forced to continue to labor under the oppression of ruthless enslavers and unscrupulous plantation owners.

In 2021, President Biden signed a bill to recognize Juneteenth as a federal holiday. Celebrations across the region and the country Wednesday will honor the day widely remembered for abolishing slavery in Texas.

But the announcement on June 19, 1865, did not end slavery in Texas. The barbaric institution continued in other forms and by other names, according to historians.

There was almost universal agreement from statements of enslaved people that many Texas slaveowners held off making the announcement, said historian C.R. Gibbs. They wanted another crop.

Many Black Texans didnt receive the news until 1866. Slaveowners resorted to tricks. They delayed. They postponed. This was money, said Gibbs, author of Black, Copper & Bright: The District of Columbias Black Civil War Regiment. They wanted to continue to get every last drop of sweat from slavery.

Even after Grangers order, Black people remained in such a delicate situation in Texas, Gibbs said. You have the collapse of the Confederate government. And roving bands of men who wanted to turn the clock back. A Union officer once said, Given a choice between hell and Texas, I would live in hell and rent out Texas. It was just that bad in Texas.

During the Civil War, Texas was a refuge for enslavers evading emancipation. Slaveowners in Arkansas, Tennessee and Louisiana ran their Negroes from Arkansas, Louisiana and other parts of the states into Texas because the U.S. Army had not reached Texas, said W. Marvin Dulaney, a retired University of Texas-Arlington historian and president of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History.

After Grangers order, the Union Army literally had to march across Texas to enforce the order and free enslaved Black people. In some cases, enslavers killed enslaved Black people rather than allow them their freedom.

Texans were so resentful that African Americans would become free, they literally carried out a pogrom, Dulaney said, citing a speech by Barry A. Crouch, a professor of history at Gallaudet University. They killed as many as 2,500. They were just murdered outright across the state.

Violence increased against African Americans between 1865 and 1868, Dulaney said. In some cases, enslaved Black people in Texas were run down by bloodhounds or shot rather than be released from bondage. It takes almost over a year for the Union Army to literally go across the state and free African Americans from slavery, Dulaney said.

Slavery formally ended in the United States on Dec. 6, 1865, with the ratification of the 13th Amendment, which stated, Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.

That exception clause created a loophole, permitting slavery to continue in another form and allowing officials in the South to perpetuate slavery conditions, including forced prison labor and convict leasing.

Grangers Juneteenth order contained a similar caveat. It declared that all slaves are free but that the relationship between former masters and slaves should become that between employer and hired labor. It continued, The freedmen are advised to remain at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts; and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.

That last line, historians say, set the stage for the continuation of slavery through convict leasing and Black code laws that would restrict the freedom of Black people.

Granger was warning them against idleness, Dulaney said. That order would lead to creation of vagrancy laws and Black codes that would be wielded against Black people, forcing many into forced labor without pay.

The sharecropping system and laws prohibiting Black people from hunting and fishing also prevented Black people from feeding themselves and required them to work for White people.

You had to sign a work contract at the beginning of each year or you could be rented out to a plantation, Dulaney said. In many cases, it was like being sold. The owners would have control over you. It was like being a slave.

Some enslavers resisted the emancipation order by fleeing taking their enslaved people south into Cuba and Brazil, where slavery had not been outlawed. The kidnapping of Black people out of the country struck fear in those who were still in precarious situations in the control of their former enslavers without protection from Union troops.

Frederick Douglasss brother Perry Downs, who was enslaved in Texas, recounted hearing his enslaver say he would run his property out of Texas.

No one knows how many enslaved Black people were driven farther south by enslavers to avoid freeing them. There were unnamed numbers of Black people taken out of the United States to places where there was still slavery, Gibbs said.

Slavery was not abolished in Cuba until 1886. Brazil became the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery in 1888.

To this day, descendants of Confederates who drove enslaved Black people into Brazil celebrate with festivals in the cities of Americana and Santa Brbara dOeste, celebrating the Confederate States of America with Confederate flag displays and dances.

In the United States, as communities prepare for Juneteenth celebrations, historians say, revelers should also pause in somber acknowledgment that the hardship of involuntary labor and racial terror against Black people continued long after Granger stood on the courthouse steps in Galveston reading the famous order for long-awaited freedom.

Juneteenth should be celebrated to recognize the symbolic emancipation of African Americans from slavery in Texas, Dulaney said. Lets celebrate it. But also realize it took much longer and much more than an order from a Union army general to end slavery in this country.

A version of this story was originally published on June 19, 2022.

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Why Juneteenth didn't actually end slavery in Texas - The Washington Post

An Arizona man plotted to target Black people in a mass shooting this spring with the goal of inciting a race war before the 2024 election, a federal grand jury charged this week.

Mark Prieto, 58, of Prescott, Ariz., made plans to carry out the attack in Atlanta, hoping to target African Americans and other non-White people, according to the indictment. From January to May, he allegedly discussed the idea with people who he believed to share his racist beliefs but who turned out to be an FBI source and an FBI undercover agent.

Prieto made the plans with them during meetups at gun shows across Arizona, fixating on the racist messages he wanted to send and the desire to fight back against Black, Jewish and Muslim people, according to the criminal complaint.

He wanted it clear that the attack was racially motivated, FBI Special Agent Ryan Harp wrote in the complaint. Prieto allegedly said he planned to leave Confederate flags at the shooting venue and to shout phrases including Black lives dont matter, White lives matter.

The concert he wanted to target was not identified by name in the court documents. Its dates and location align with an appearance by the artist Bad Bunny at Atlantas State Farm Arena. Prieto sought to target a rap concert because he believed Black people would be there, the complaint says.

Prieto was charged with firearms trafficking and related counts after allegedly selling two rifles in February and March to the undercover agent. He was jailed in Arizona and has no attorney listed in that case. An attorney in New Mexico, where Prieto was arrested, did not return a call from The Washington Post on Thursday.

In recent years, factors including extremism online, mistrust of government and the growing influence of Christian nationalism including ideas promoted by some conservative elected officials and candidates have had an influence on U.S. politics. The country has seen racially motivated mass shootings in El Paso; Charleston, S.C.; Buffalo; and elsewhere.

The rise in extremism has deep historical roots in the United States, said Alvin Tillery Jr., director of the Center for the Study of Democracy and Diversity at Northwestern University. After the Civil Rights Act was passed, demonstrations of white supremacy became more reserved and now were in a more open phase again, he said.

The belief in a need to stop the theft of this country by liberal or non-White people has led to cases of political violence, said Jon Lewis, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University.

This case is symptomatic of the state of political violence and extremism in the United States today, Lewis said. The idea of committing an act of mass violence with the hopes that it will trigger a cascade of violence is an increasingly common narrative within a lot of these far-right neo-Nazi spaces.

According to the indictment, Prieto said his attack needed to happen before Novembers presidential election. He allegedly spoke about a desire to incite a race war and his belief that the government would impose martial law after the election.

In his conversations with the FBI source and undercover agent, Prieto allegedly strategized about what type of gun to use, what to wear, how to escape, how to broadcast messages during the attack and other logistics. He allegedly sold an AR-15 rifle to the undercover agent and told him to use it in the attack.

In early May, Prieto allegedly said he was going to travel to Atlanta to do reconnaissance work. He decided he may not carry out the attack at the concert and instead talked about attacking a mosque later in the summer, according to the indictment.

On May 14, law enforcement officers stopped Prieto as he drove through New Mexico. He said he was going to visit his mother in Florida and allegedly acknowledged he had discussed carrying out an attack in Atlanta but said he did not intend to do so, according to the complaint.

A trial date had not been set as of Friday.

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Man charged with planning mass shooting in Atlanta to start race war - The Washington Post

(CNN) Amy Donofrio was a beloved and highly regarded high school teacher in Jacksonville, Florida, where for yearsshesought to empower students and advocate for racial justice.

Outside the room where she taught English to mostly Black students at the former Robert E. Lee High School she had placed a sign that read, Hate Has No Home Here, according to an April order by an administrative law judge who recommended Donofrio receive a written reprimand after state officials accused the teacher of bringing her personal views into the classroom.

Ms. Donofrio was a pillar for us, former student Diamond Wallace, 24, told CNN this week. She acted as a rock for us and she was more like a mom, like a second mom to all of us students.

At the start of the 2020 school year,in the aftermath ofGeorge Floyds murderat the hands ofpolice in Minneapolis, Donofrio,who is White, put up a large Black Lives Matter banner outside her classroom.She had displayeda BLM sign and t-shirt in her classroom as early as 2018, according tofindings inthe administrative judgesrecommendation.

Administratorsasked her to remove it,and expressed concern the display might violate school districtpolicy. Donofrio refused. She said she believed the policy did not apply to the banner.On March 23, 2021, a school administrator removed the banner about five months after she was first asked to bring it down. A day later Donofrio was reassigned to a work at a district warehouse.

School officials had also voiced concerns that Donofriodisplayed face masks in her classroom that read,Robert E. Lee was a gang member which they considered to be an expression of her personal view. At the time the school district was in the process of renaming six schools named for Confederate generals.Donofrio denied the masks which were common during the pandemic were on display. She said the logo I am not a gang member was a phrase students use as part of their advocacy of racial justice, according to the administrative judges findings.

At a Thursday hearing, Floridas Education Practices Commission is expected to decide if Donofrio will be sanctioned fordisplaying the Robert E. Lee masks,as well as wearing one herselfat a community meeting, in support of changing the once-segregated schools name.

The hearing was prompted by administrative law judge Suzanne Van Wyks April recommendation that Donofrio receive a written reprimand forwearing and displaying the Robert E. Lee masks which she said violatedthe school policy that teachers remain neutral on politically charged issuessuch as the school renaming and mask-wearing.

VanWyks order noted in part that the offense was not severe and there was no danger or harm to the public or students. The judge determined there was no evidence that Donofriofailed to distinguish between her personal views and those of the School, or District when she displayed the Black Lives Matter banner or that it went against district policy, according to her findings.

The five-person panel of the Education Practices Commission a member of law enforcement, a parent and three teachers will have the final say and could revoke her teaching license. The quasi-judicial state agency imposes discipline on teachers and school administrators.

Im not doing the thing that I was born to do, that I loved more than anything and Im having to fight to get it back, Donofrio, who taught at the school for nine years but has not been allowed back in a Florida classroom since 2021, told CNN.

She added, School is supposed to be a safe place for students. Its about them.

School administrators didnt respond to CNNs request for comment ahead of the hearing.

Donofrios future as a teacher will be decidedat a time when Floridas classrooms have become front lines in Gov. Ron DeSantis culture wars, which have taken aim atevery aspect of education fromformal classroominstruction on sexual orientation and gender identity to whatpublicschools teach about racism and American history to what books students can read and whatbathrooms they can use.

Our school system should be about educating kids not indoctrinating kids,DeSantis told reporters in May 2023.

In 2021, the BLM bannerhanging overDonofriosclassroom door, as well as her outspokenness on racial justice,becamea political flash point across the state. Her advocacy of racial justice wasbrought up in discussionsabout whether the school should abandon its Confederate namesake. The school was renamed Riverside High School inJune2021.

Days before the banner was taken down, the district published a memo that stated employees are not permitted to display flags, banners or other signage representing a particular social cause or movement in a manner that may be interpreted as District speech, and identified Black Lives Matter as an expression of support for a social justice movement, according to the administrative judgesrecommendedorder.

Floridas former education commissionercalled it an example of indoctrination and critical race theory in schools even though the discipline was not part of Donofrios curriculum.

There was an entire classroom memorialized to Black Lives Matter, the former commissioner, Richard Corcoran, told reporters at the time. We made sure she was terminated.

Donofrio was not fired even as she defied multiple requests from school officials to take down the flag. She also challenged the district on its treatment of Black students and staff.

Her students responded by collecting nearly 18,000 signatures on a public petition calling for her return.

I wasnt removed for anything having to do with my teaching, Donofrio said. No one has ever been able to say anything.Nor of my test scores, right, reflected anything but that Im a passionate, quality teacher.

Donofrio eventually sued Duval County Public Schools and its regional high school superintendent in federal court, alleging that the district retaliated against her for her protected speech, her complaints about discrimination, and, more broadly, her support of Black students lives, according to a complaintfiled in April 2021. The school board paid $300,000 to settle the lawsuit in 2021, according to CNN affiliate WJXT.

I really thought that things were kind of moving forward and then suddenly, we turned human compassion into something thats controversial, Donofrio said.

Donofrios outspokenness on racial justice was not new. Even before she put out the Black Lives Matter flag, she had led a course for several years to empower Black students through professional development, college preparation and civic engagement.

For her to be able to make teenagers feel comfortable enough to come in her classroom and express the trauma that they have gone through voluntarily, thats a gift, said Wallaces mother, Renita Turner.

Donofrio and her studentsearned national attention, and the course eventually became the organization known as theEVAC Movement.Students traveled to the White House in 2016 and met with congressional leaders. Then-President Barack Obama met with them when he visited Jacksonville.

It is honestly the most beautiful thing I have ever been a part of, Donofrio recalled this week,referring to the EVAC movementand the attention it garnered for her students.

Teachers have gathered to swing back in the name of teaching honest history, teaching honestly to their students, said Donofrios lawyer, Mark Richard. We do not want to be caught in these culture wars.

Donofrio added, My students matter, teachers who care about students matter I have no doubt that with or without me, theyre going to change the world.

CNNs Ray Sanchez and Harmeet Kaur contributed to this report.

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Florida teacher's license could be revoked after she supported Black Lives Matter and the changing of school's name - kwwl.com

In 2021, Amy Donofrio was removed from the classroom after she refused to take down the flag. Thursday's ruling allows her to keep her teaching license.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. A former Duval County Public Schools teacher will keep her teaching license after she was removed three years ago for displaying a Black Lives Matter flag in her classroom.

Thursday, Floridas Education Practices Commission voted unanimously in favor of allowing Amy Donofrio to retain her license.

Donofrio said she's happy to have closure.

"The last three years have been without a doubt, the hardest years of my life," Donofrio said.

In 2021, Donofrio was reassigned for refusing to remove a Black Lives Matter flag from her Robert E. Lee High School classroom.

The commission unanimously agreeing with a judge's ruling that Donofrio did nothing wrong by refusing to remove the flag.

This circus that DCPS put, not just me but our community through, our children through this painful, painful chapter, it was all completely unnecessary," Donofrio said.

Donofrios removal came as the schools name was changing from Lee High School to Riverside.

Former Florida Education Commissioner, Richard Corcoran, called out Donofrio at the time saying, "we made sure she was terminated."

Donofrio sued DCPS and the two sides settled for $300,000 in 2021.

Thursday ruling provided closed the latest chapter for the former teacher.

Affirming Black students is our professional responsibility as teachers to do. It's not something that should cost someone their job. It's not something that should cost someone their teaching license. And today in the state of Florida, it didn't," Donofrio said.

The commission did issue a written reprimand to Donofrio saying she failed to keep her personal beliefs out of the classroom by allowing students to wear face masks saying, "Robert E. Lee is a gang member."

First Coast Newsreached out to Duval County Public Schools and is waiting to hear back.

Donofrio says she has not heard from the district, but said she wants to stay in Jacksonville and help kids.

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Just a few steps away from Centennial Common, where pro-Palestine protesters set up an encampment for nearly 48 hours in April, sits the John D. OBryant African American Institute. Affectionately called The Tute by many students, the building is home to Northeasterns Black student organizations, events and ideals that, some say, closely align with those of students advocating for Gaza.

Starting April 25, hundreds of student protesters and community members filled Centennial Common to join a pro-Palestine encampment, adding Northeastern to the plethora of universities across the nation whose students and affiliates are demonstrating against what they view as their schools involvement in the escalating violence in the Gaza Strip. The protesting is fueled by calls for the divestment of university funds from companies involved with Israel and its military.

For the hours that the encampment stood, people of many ethnicities, races and backgrounds joined students in their cause to make for a diverse crowd and sense of community that some protesters said isnt present in other spaces at the school. But Black students who participated in the encampment said the calls for justice hit especially close to home.

One student, who was granted anonymity due to fear of social retaliation, said it was a trip to The Tute that drew him to the chants for a ceasefire.

The student, a rising second-year mechanical engineering major, felt the decision to stop by the encampment wasnt a matter of knowledge, but instinct. Despite his academic focus on STEM, he cited his education on movements advocating for social progress as the most influential in his decision to join the protesters.

I felt a sense of guilt. Here I am walking past the opportunity to do the things [Ive learned about], he said.

After first joining, the reasons to stay despite the risk of arrest or disciplinary action from the school compiled quickly, the rising second-year student said. The sense of community he felt led him to stay for over three hours.

Another student, a recent 2024 alum with a degree in environmental engineering who was granted anonymity due to fear of retaliation from the New York institution they are attending for graduate school, echoed the sentiment of connection and community she felt at the encampment which many find difficult as Black students in predominantly white spaces that made her stay. Amongst the Black students present at the demonstration, there were no clear patterns apart from a shared desire for social justice, with students representing all majors, organizations and cultures linked arm in arm, the alum said.

I feel like I meet so many people [at protests]. You both know that youre there for social impact. People are going because they actually care about the cause, the alum said.

The development of these forged communities, she believes, is important to the vitality of any social justice movement, with personal relationships being the reason local initiatives become worldwide stories.

The only discernible trend they saw amongst the Black protesters, the two protesters said, was an intimate past with justice movements, with some of the most major protests in American history happening as close as their front doorstep.

The rising second-year student, who lived in Washington, D.C. for the majority of his life, recalls laying awake by his bedroom window as calls for gun control echoed throughout the city in the wake of the 2018 Parkland school shooting.

I remember watching the March for Our Lives and thinking, I dont wanna look back and say I just watched because of the risk, he said.

Personal connections to ideas for change stand at the core of the Black student experiences at Northeastern, both students said. The rising second-year student noted that outside of times of heightened polarization, a significant portion of his conversations with peers were already colored by race, discrimination and what college students could contribute.

No African American goes to college without changing some portion of their world these are the issues we came to college to change, he said.

Rashida Jalloh, co-president of the Northeastern Black Student Association, said active participation in any form of advocacy is one that resonates with the purpose of the student organization as a whole.

Our organization believes all the Black students and students in general on campus should have the right to exercise their beliefs safely and correctly, she said.

Beyond the general desire to contribute to the movement, Black students who participated in the encampment spoke about a respect for the Palestinian people that they believe is mutual. The evidence of this symbiosis between people isnt hypothetical, the alum said, but rather found in the history of the Black Lives Matter movement and others just like it.

When it was [tanks] rolling through Ferguson during [a Black Lives Matter] protest, it was Palestinians over there telling us how to deal with tear gas over here. How is standing up for Palestine not also standing up for myself? Our struggles are interconnected, the alum said.

The rising second-year also mentioned that the politic of solidarity is upheld throughout the diaspora, wherever people are paying the price of colonialism.

A similar thing is happening where Im from Cameroon, the rising second-year student said, [There is] media suppression, mass violence, oppressor and the oppressed.

The rising second-year student also said that solidarity extends beyond the empathy of linked struggle. Many groups on campus South Asian, Latin American, white American, Jewish, Muslim were present together at the demonstration despite what he believes traditional media conveys.

Another student, a rising third-year, who requested anonymity due to personal privacy concerns, was one of the 98 people arrested April 27. He said what he called the extreme measures taken by the various police departments that were present were coded by the abuse Black people often face.

The alum, after witnessing dozens of her peers in handcuffs, said she wasnt shocked by the lengths the police went, a stance entrenched in her belief that Northeastern has always been violent just in more covert ways.

You see this with everything [at Northeastern]. Northeastern has been complicit in genocide. They were complicit in Apartheid. They gentrify Roxbury. Theres blood on their hands, she said.

Despite this, the students said they remain reassured in the might of their community and the potential for dreams to become reality against insurmountable odds.

Look in the eyes of fear and tyranny and say you do not scare me, the rising second-year student said. Black students stand with Palestine. If not all, the vast majority. Its the Black Muslims, Black Christians, African Americans, Black Americans, all of us.

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'These are the issues we came to college to change': Black students at pro-Palestine encampment find solidarity ... - The Huntington News