A Florida high school teacher could lose her job and certification after she nominated a student to be the “Most Likely to Become a Dictator.”
Lauren Watts, a history teacher at Gainesville High School, is also accused of labeling the student a “Naziphile.”
Crystal Marull said the teacher also allowed classmates to suggest her son was a Hitler sympathizer.
Marull testified before a school committee and presented evidence that backed up her charges – including an actual certificate that declared her son most likely to become a dictator. She says he was targeted by the teacher because of his conservative beliefs.
“My older son’s history teacher allowed students to label him a Naziphile simply for his interest in history and participation in ROTC,” she told Fox News. “She later nominated my son as the ‘most likely to become a dictator’ and had his classmates vote on it. And try to force him to the front of the class to receive the certificate, which he rightly refused, all because of his conservative values and our perspectives.”
“His feelings were hurt, he found it very inappropriate,” Marull said. “But you know, he’s a typical teenage boy. He’s going to try to laugh it off and not show if it really does hurt him more deeply or not. He kind of let it roll. I was far more concerned because I believe it spoke to a larger problem within that classroom. It spoke to the problem that it appeared that this teacher was not equipped to be teaching history as she didn’t seem to appreciate history.”
When local school leaders ignored the problem, she took her complaints to the state. And now the Florida attorney general is investigating.
The State Board of Education is also looking into the matter and one education commissioner says Watts is guilty of gross immorality.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier wrote a letter to the Alachua County Public School District calling for the teacher to be “immediately terminated, and never allowed to teach again in Florida.”
Clearly, this teacher has absolutely no place in a public or private school classroom.
Todd Starnes is an award-winning journalist, best-selling author, and host of The Todd Starnes Radio Show.
