(LifeSiteNews) — A middle school teacher has been restored to the classroom after spending almost an entire school year exiled in a basement after speaking out against critical race theory (CRT).
Ramona Bessinger, an English teacher of 23 years, has announced that “with the help” of Judicial Watch’s Senior Attorney James Peterson,” the Providence Public School District in Rhode Island has freed her from a punitive teaching “limbo” and restored her to a permanent classroom assignment.
Bessinger was essentially exiled after she publicly protested against the district’s new curriculum because of its infusion with “divisive” CRT, according to Bessinger, and because she began to experience its divisive effects firsthand.
Critical race theory is the doctrine that race is a “socially constructed category that is used to oppress and exploit people of color,” and that “racism is inherent in the law and legal institutions of the United States insofar as they function to create and maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and nonwhites, especially African Americans.”
“My students, almost all of whom were minority, started calling me ‘America’ because I was white — You are America, they would say, we are not,” Bessinger explained in a blog post announcing her win.
She had also earlier shared how teachers themselves were encouraged to split up into “affinity groups” based on their race, in which the white teachers were to be instructed “how not to be a white supremacist in the classroom.”
The curriculum was also being purged of cherished classic literature including Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Holocaust-related literature, poetry by Robert Frost and Maya Angelou, and essays by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
While a few select authors and titles are to be implemented instead at the high-school level, one book replacement reflects the infusion of CRT Bessinger refers to: Instead of reading Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in middle school, high school students are to read Romiette and Julio, which parallels the original classic, but is written to “reflect modern racial tensions between African-Americans and Hispanics in the United States.”
After her story gained international attention, through appearances on Fox News and Sky News Australia, Bessinger suffered harassment, and what appeared to be both verbal and professional retaliation: She was involuntarily transferred from her permanent position as teacher at Esek Hopkins School in Providence, Rhode Island, to a basement in Classical High School with no classroom assignment or job duties. She was given no “formal or disciplinary reason” for the transfer.
During that time, she was approached by two students who she said were apparently “told by faculty members” that she was “a homophobic white supremacist.” Bessinger said she was eventually blocked from online library and curriculum resources.
Rather than quit and surrender, Bessinger filed “grievance after grievance.” She summed up her motivation to keep fighting for her position this way:
The Providence School District management have essentially replaced the study of American history with a mutated version that is nothing more than woke, racist propaganda intended to inject the politics of “white supremacy” and to apply the canard of systemic racism to the past, airbrushing white historical figures from factual American history and changing their race to Black or Asian.
“The result is nothing more than educational theft,” Bessinger continued. “Our students’ education is being stolen from them. And I feel it is crucial to let people know all about it….For me, this new curriculum platform seemed designed to tear us apart and incite hatred and division.”
Bessinger emphasized her devotion to education in her comment on the victory.
“It would have been so easy to throw in the towel and step out into the fresh air and sunlight, and leave all that nonsense behind for good. But I persevered with a great deal more that lies ahead,” wrote Bessinger.
“Now, I can continue to teach children the truth about this great nation and perhaps contribute to the restoration of a politically neutral zone for all children K-12.”