Election cycles can create some pretty tense exchanges between the opposing fans of our two-party political football games, so we shouldn’t be all that surprised to learn that a recent Mitt Romney t-shirt kerfuffle at Philadelphia high school has culminated in an allegedly snarky teacher being investigated by the school board and an allegedly ridiculed student switching schools.
Samantha Pawlucy, a 16-year-old (now former) student at Charles Carroll High in the Port Richmond area of Philadelphia, had accused her math teacher, Lynette Gaymon, of poking fun at the Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan t-shirt (not the Gene Simmons verison, just to be clear) Pawlucy wore to school on Sept. 28, “dress-down” day. Gaymon allegedly compared Pawlucy wearing the Romney/Ryan shirt to Gaymon, who is black, wearing a KKK shirt (she also apparently informed Pawlucy that the Carroll was “Democratic”).
This confrontation obviously created some tension within the school — Pawlucy claims to have been harassed by fellow students and Gaymon has been harassed by total strangers who call her up to say things like, according to one Gaymon’s totally freaked-out aunts, “Watch your back, (racist slur). I’mma blow your (profanity) brains out.” Though Gaymon has insisted she was joking with Pawlucy and that, moreover, Pawlucy knew that the t-shirt ribbing was all a merry jest, Pawlucy’s father has been so riled by the experienced that none of his three children will return to Carroll, and they will possibly transfer, with the help of State representative John Taylor’s office, to a charter school.
According to The Philadelphia Inquirer‘s latest coverage of this polyester blended controversy, Gaymon is now set to have a hearing that will determine the ominous sounding “next step” in the school district’s investigation of the incident. She returned to the school on Tuesday to read an apology letter directly to the student body, though there has been some disagreement about whether or not Gaymon should have returned to the school as per the conditions of an agreement she reached with administrators on Monday.
Student in Romney t-shirt flap won’t return to Carroll [The Philadelphia Inquirer]
Lynette Gaymon, Philadelphia Teacher At Center Of Mitt Romney T-Shirt Controversy, Receives Death Threats While Classmates Taunt Samantha Pawlucy [HuffPo]
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