Seattle Teachers Allegedly Tells Students ‘Straight’ Identities are Offensive
A Seattle parent filed a complaint with Chief Sealth International High School after alleging that a teacher at the school told students that identifying as “straight” was offensive.
The mother of a 15-year-old student in Seattle said that her son’s tenth-grade Ethnic Studies World History teacher and “self-identified communist” according to Jason Rantz, Ian Golash, asked students to complete a “Social Identity Wheel” questionnaire. The worksheet reportedly asked students to state their “racial, ethnic, gender, socio-economic status, physical, emotional, or developmental disabilities, and sexual orientation.”
The parent told Rantz that Golash reprimanded her son after self-identifying as “straight” because the word “implies that to not be straight is to be ‘crooked’ which could have a negative connotation.”
“Because I think language has power and that it shapes the culture that we live in, I did say to the class, in response to a student, that I do not use the term ‘straight’ because it implies that to not be straight is to be ‘crooked’ which could have a negative connotation,” Golash said in an email to the student’s mother. “But, again stated that I am not interested in telling them how they should identify and that the wheel they are completing is for their own reflection, not for me to assess.”
The parent then alleged that Golash called her son a “product of the patriarchy that teaches young boys not to care,” after he missed a lesson pertaining to Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act, which was lambasted by progressive activists as the “don’t say gay” bill.
In a response to the parent’s accusations, Golash again said that his statement was not directed at her son, but did not dispute the quote provided by the mother. “My response about patriarchy was not directed at one student, it was connected to discussions of systems of power that we had been having in the previous few days and the behavior of several boys in the class,” he explained, according to an email chain provided to Rantz.
Golash has reportedly been entangled in controversy before, after allegedly failing a student’s quiz for stating that men cannot become pregnant. TPUSA reported on the purported incident, writing that the teacher “administered a multiple choice test to students that was reportedly titled, Understanding Gender vs. Sex“ which asked students to respond “true or false,” to the statement, “Only women can get pregnant.”
The Post Millennial’s Andy Ngo also found that Golash has a “disturbing criminal history,” which includes multiple prior arrests in Oregon for assault, violating parole, and criminal harassment.
