Spencer, NC: Black Teacher, Tanya Dixon-Neely, Bullies White Student, Hunter Rogers, and Lies, Saying That It is a Crime to Criticize Obama

 
Student Hunter Rogers (he's already permitted his picture to be published)
 

North Rowan High School
 
By Nicholas Stix
Revised and expanded on Tuesday, May 22, 2012, at 3:42 a.m.

“Do you realize that people were arrested for saying bad things about Bush?... You’re not supposed to slander the President. People were arrested for saying derogatory things about Bush”

Two of teacher Tanya Dixon-Neely’s lies
 

“They can’t take away your freedom of speech, unless you threaten the President”

Student Hunter Rogers' correct retort to Dixon-Neely
 

Teacher Tanya Dixon-Neely talks of “respecting” the President, but she uses the word in the way typical of racist blacks, for whom “to respect” actually means to submit. For them, for a white to disagree in any way, or fail to act like a slave around them, is for him to “disrespect” them. In the case of a political leader, one submits only to a dictator, but that is the way Dixon-Neely and millions of blacks look at “Obama” and, indeed, the way “Obama” looks at himself.

Thus, Dixon Neely equates any criticism or even lack of submission to Obama as “slander,” and equates “slander” with a crime.

It is very difficult to follow the audio on the video below, because Dixon-Neely runs a very disorderly classroom, in which everyone talks and laughs among themselves, while she is speaking. That includes the student whom she harasses on the tape, and his friend, Steven Sanchez, who is doing the taping. The dissenter has the right to his opinion, but he, his friend, and other students have no business making so much noise during class. However, Dixon-Neely clearly does not consider this disruptive, but rather normal behavior.

Aside from being a moron who cannot speak proper, intelligible English, and a bully, Dixon-Neely is an incompetent who tolerates cursing in her classroom, and who herself curses!

When I was researching the education chapter for the NPI report, The State of White America-2007, I learned that it is common in many black-run schools for black teachers to permit black students to curse in their classes, but that when white teachers in the same schools (e.g., Cecelia Lacks) conformed to the “culture,” and to be “relevant,” in order to be accepted by the students, black school administrators would use the classroom cursing as a pretext to fire the white teachers.

When I taught “college”—most of it on the level of a grammar or junior high school—I permitted my students to speak their mind, but I did not tolerate the sort of disorder that can be heard on the video, and there was no cursing in my classroom. Then again, Tanya Dixon-Neely rarely speaks loudly and clearly, when she isn’t shouting down and harassing a student, though she does calm down toward the end of the tape.

My voice was loud and clear at all times, unless I was making a dramatic point, say, by speaking in a stage whisper, to get my drifting students’ attention. And I never harassed any students, though I had quite a few who harassed me. (Obviously, not everyone is going to take my word for that.)

Every semester, I had disruptive students, and I had to run them out of class, if I was to get any teaching done. Almost all of the troublemakers were female: White (including one open lesbian, who used her sexuality to try and take over the classroom), black, and Hispanic. I had Asian coeds, but never had any problems with any of them. And while I had problems with black coeds of all ages, the white and Hispanic female troublemakers were, I believe, all past 30 years of age.

Most of my bosses, white and black alike, encouraged the troublemakers.

I would never dream of inviting students to say their piece, and then retaliating against them for it, but that practice is SOP in the racial socialist classroom and workplace.

The only time I can recall stopping a student who wasn’t interrupting me from speaking was in Paterson, N.J. The student was a young black man who was a member of the Nation of Islam. He was my favorite student in the class: Unfailingly polite and inquisitive. His only shortcoming was that he was compulsively tardy. Considering that his vice had been mine as a student, I couldn’t bring myself to hassle him over it.

In the moment in question, Mr. F. told me that he’d been in trouble when he was younger. “Do want me to tell you what I got in trouble for?” I responded, “No.”

At that point, I’d been around the block enough times to intuit that Mr. F. had done something very bad, and that if he told me what it was, I’d stop liking him.

The Rowan Salisbury School District initially supported Tanya Dixon-Neely, calling her misconduct “a learning experience” for the student, whose parents learned to pull him from the school. Once administrators’ support for Dixon-Neely blew up in their faces online, they went into damage control mode, and suspended her with pay (see the story below), while they try to figure out how to “manage” the situation.

For me, the most disturbing aspect of this brouhaha is not that Tanya Dixon-Neely is some kind of monster, but that thousands of incompetent, racist, and often functionally illiterate black and Hispanic affirmative action hires are teaching in the nation’s public schools that are much worse than she is.

Link to the Rowan-Salisbury School System (North Rowan H.S. doesn’t have iots own Web page)
Phone: 704-636-7500

North Rowan H.S. Cavaliers Alumni Association Web site

* * *


Published on May 14, 2012 by rossache19
 

Video stirs debate on teacher's actions in North class
Saturday, May 19, 2012 12:00 AM | Printer friendly version | E-mail to a friend | 342Comments
By Sarah Campbell
scampbell@salisburypost.com
Salisbury Post

SPENCER — After reviewing a video in which a North Rowan High School teacher tells a student he can be arrested for speaking ill of President Barack Obama, the Rowan-Salisbury School System said it can be a learning experience.

Meanwhile, an expert on politics at Catawba College says the social studies teacher just doesn’t have her facts straight when she insists speaking your mind about a president can get you charged with a criminal offense.

Although two students provided the name of the teacher, the Post is not publishing it because officials within the school system would not confirm her identity and she could not be reached for comment.

The video captures audio of the dispute but does not show the teacher or anyone else. It appears to have been shot with a phone or other device as the camera pointed at the ceiling the entire time.

Rowan-Salisbury spokeswoman Rita Foil confirmed the teacher is still employed with the district and has not been suspended for disciplinary reasons. Foil emailed this statement to a Post reporter Friday on behalf of the school system:

“The Rowan-Salisbury School System expects all students and employees to be respectful in the school environment and for all teachers to maintain their professionalism in the classroom. This incident should serve as an education for all teachers to stop and reflect on their interaction with students.

“Due to personnel and student confidentiality, we cannot discuss the matter publicly.”

The nearly 10-minute video, shot by a student and uploaded to YouTube on Monday, had been viewed more than 1,000 times by Friday afternoon.

It begins with a classroom conversation about a recent news story detailing Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney allegedly bullying a classmate in prep school. It turns into a heated, sometimes confrontational debate.

One student asks, “Didn’t Obama bully someone though?”

The teacher responds: “Not to my knowledge.”

In response to the Romney story, conservatives have recently been pointing to a passage in Obama’s book, “Dreams from My Father,” in which the president writes that while in grade school he shoved a little girl, the only other black student in his grade, after other students called him her boyfriend.

When the student tells the teacher that Obama admitted to bullying a girl in school, the teacher goes on the defensive.

“Stop, no, because there is no comparison,” she says. Romney, she says, is “running for president. Obama is the president.”

When the student says they’re both “just men,” the teacher continues to argue that Romney, as a candidate for president, is not to be afforded the same respect as the president.

The teacher tells the class Obama is “due the respect that every other president is due.”

“Listen, let me tell you something, you will not disrespect the president of the United States in this classroom,” she says.

The student replies that he’ll say what he wants.

“Not about him you won’t,” the teacher says.

Later in the conversation, the teacher tells the class it’s criminal to slander a president.

“Do you realize that people were arrested for saying things bad about Bush?” she says of former President Bush. “Do you realize you are not supposed to slander the president?”

The student responds by saying being arrested for talking badly about the president would violate the right to free speech.

“You would have to say some pretty f’d up crap about him to be arrested,” he says. “They cannot take away your right to have your opinion. ... They can’t take that away unless you threaten the president.”

Principal Darrel McDowell referred questions about the video to Foil.

Michael Bitzer, a political science professor at Catawba College and a widely known political analyst, weighed in on the video.

“I think what this broke down to was a perceived personal slight by an instructor against someone she sees in a positive view, and things just went out of control from there,” Bitzer said in an email to the Post.

Bitzer said he thinks the teacher did go a “bit overboard in being rude towards the student.”

“I think the student was also trying to pick a fight, honestly,” he said.

Bitzer said it appears the teacher’s attempt to make a point about showing respect for the office of the president gets overshadowed by her personal feelings for Obama.

“Her point about not being able to say anything ‘disrespectful’ about the president does fly in the face of the First Amendment, and while she may wish to enforce that edict about ‘respecting’ the president, the issue seems to have gotten personal on her part,” Bitzer wrote.

“Granted, she apparently tried to ensure that a respectful conversation was had about the president, but she seems to have taken things a bit too personally — and it appears the student was set on making a confrontation in the guise of raising a question about ‘who bullied who — both Romney and Obama?’ ”

Referencing former president George W. Bush, Richard Nixon and Abraham Lincoln, Bitzer said the fact that there are a lot of “mean, derogatory things said about our elected officials” is part of American history.

Bitzer said he has “no idea” what the teacher is talking about when she claims people were arrested for saying bad things about Bush.

“I have never heard of anyone arrested for saying derogatory things about George W. Bush , which I am assuming she is referring to,” he said. “Her belief that if one slanders the president is not very accurate — if you ‘threaten’ the president, that is another story, and that is a criminal offense.”

Searches on YouTube don’t bring up the video because it is classified as unlisted.

* * *
Classroom debate over Obama goes viral; teacher suspended
By David Whisenant
Monday, May 21st, 2012, 7:24 a.m.
WBTV

The video, shot from a student's cell phone, shows only the ceiling and a light fixture, but it's what can be heard that has this clip getting lots of interest

SALISBURY - The teacher at the center of a controversy over a classroom video has now been suspended with pay, according to the Rowan Salisbury School System.

Tonya Dixon-Neely teaches Social Studies at North Rowan High. She is heard on the video telling a student that he could get arrested for being critical of President Obama, and that people were arrested for being critical of President Bush.

"Effective today, Tanya Dixon-Neely has been suspended with pay while a thorough investigation is being conducted," school officials told WBTV when asked about Dixon-Neely's status.

The link to the video first showed up at WBTV on Tuesday of last week.

It came from a man who said he was a former teacher in the Rowan Salisbury School System. He claimed that a student inside a classroom at North Rowan High School was being verbally abused in a debate over President Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney.

"This video is circulating the internet. It is about a North Rowan High School social studies teacher that is verbally abusing a student regarding a question about the President and Mitt Romney," he told WBTV in his email.

"Please watch and listen to the actions of the teacher in this video and bring this type of bullying of students by the staff of RSS to light. As a former social studies teacher in the RSS system, I can tell you that this type of behavior is commonplace," his email continued. "This should not be allowed to be covered up by RSS, as they nearly always do."

The video was shot on the student's cell phone as it sits on a desk, staring up at the fluorescent light on the ceiling, capturing the often out of control conversation between the teacher and several students.

When one student begins criticizing President Obama, the teacher seems to go on the defensive, telling the student at one point that he can be arrested for being critical of the President.

WBTV contacted the Rowan Salisbury School System last week about the video.
Public Information Officer Rita Foil said she was not aware of it and WBTV forwarded the video to her.

[N.S.: At this point, the article provides a link to the video, which I posted above.]

On Thursday, the video was discussed on WSTP Radio, generating several angry calls over the teacher's handling of the situation.

The Rowan-Salisbury School System expects all students and employees to be respectful in the school environment and for all teachers to maintain their professionalism in the classroom," a statement from the school system stated on Friday. "This incident should serve as an education for all teachers to stop and reflect on their interaction with students. Due to personnel and student confidentiality, we cannot discuss the matter publicly."

School board member Kay Wright Norman calls the incident "unfortunate." She says that educators have an obligation to speak fact. Norman feels the teacher was baited from the beginning but said a teacher can't let let [sic] personal interest interfere with classroom discussions.

Several students at the school Monday defended Ms. Dixon-Neely by saying she is a "good teacher" who "cares about her students." Others say the issue is being blown out of proportion.

"It tends to be a one-way conversation in certain classrooms. And if America is going to have a dialog on politics, it really needs to be a two-way discussion," Rowan County resident Vernon Shurtz said.

"He was wrong for setting her up like that, he could have just went in and talked to her," Student Desmond Turner said.

An article in the Salisbury Post by Sarah Campbell brought more attention, and when the Post article was spotted by several on line news organizations, including the Drudge Report, the incident got national attention.

* * *
The old friend who sent the David Whisenant article wrote,

The kid knows 5x as much as the ‘teacher’, not to mention he has an IQ which is 50 points higher.

And listen to the language thrown around casually in class. We would’ve been thrown out of school.

But then again, we never had any Affirmative Action dummies for teachers.

* * *
Contact page for Tanya Dixon-Neely

Video of classroom political discussion goes viral
Tuesday, May 22, 2012 12:00 a.m.| 1 Comments
By Sarah Campbell
scampbell@salisburypost.com
Salisbury Post

SPENCER — The Rowan-Salisbury School System was propelled into the national spotlight over the weekend after a video featuring a heated political exchange between a North Rowan High School teacher and student went viral.

The student, Hunter Rogers, said Monday that he was surprised by how much attention the video has received. And at their regularly scheduled meeting Monday night, school board members said the system is taking action.

Views of the nearly 10-minute video skyrocketed from about 1,000 Friday to more than 330,000 Monday evening.

A number of conservative news outlets on TV and online have picked up the story, which originally appeared in the Post on Saturday.

Neither of the key players from the video is currently at North Rowan.

Teacher Tanya Dixon-Neely was placed on paid suspension Monday as the district investigates the incident.

Senior Hunter Rogers has been pulled out of the school by his parents and plans to obtain his high school equivalency certificate from Rowan-Cabarrus Community College.

The video captures Dixon-Neely telling Rogers that it’s criminal to slander a president.

It begins with a classroom conversation about a recent news story detailing Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney bullying a classmate in prep school. It turns into a heated, sometimes confrontational debate. After Rogers asks “Didn’t (President Barack) Obama bully someone, though?” Dixon-Neely fires back “Not to my knowledge.”

Dixon-Neely tells Rogers he will not disrespect the president in her classroom and goes on to say that people were arrested for saying derogatory things about former President George W. Bush.

Rogers said he’s surprised about the amount of attention the video has gotten.

“I didn’t think that it was going to be like this, but honestly I’m excited,” he said. “I want people to see this, let this be an example.”

Berated and yelled at

Rogers told a Post reporter he asked his friend, Steven Sanchez, to use a cell phone to take the video that was uploaded last Monday.

“I videoed this because there are millions of kids going home every day telling their parents there is a teacher doing this, and a lot of parents think because teachers are role models they can’t be doing anything that bad,” Rogers said.

Rogers said incidents like the one depicted in the video occur in Dixon-Neely’s sociology and psychology class at least once a week.

“She always wants to start these discussions where she wants to hear only what she believes, and if anybody else in the class has different beliefs we get berated and yelled at and attacked,” he said.

Tim Rogers said his son came home on a regular basis after getting “beat up just because him and two other kids in the class had different political views.”

“I tell my boys all the time that you have to respect that everyone has their own view,” he said. “You can’t shove it down people’s throats and that’s when it became a problem.”

Hunter Rogers said at times he opted not to participate in political discussions, but Dixon-Neely threatened to give him a poor participation grade.

“I didn’t want to particate if my opinions weren’t being heard,” he said.

Hunter Rogers said he felt like Dixon-Neely was “lying to my face” when she said that people have been arrested for speaking ill of the president.

“Either she was lying to me or she didn’t know any better,” he said. “But I know way better, I know that nobody can take away your freedom of speech unless you threaten the president.”

Tim Rogers said perhaps Dixon-Neely hasn’t done enough “studying on politics.”

“Unless you’re making a threat, you can say what you want to say,” he said. “That’s politics 101.”

The decision to pull Hunter out of North was made jointly between his mother and father. He did not return to school after the video was posted on YouTube.

“Just because of the explosion of this video we thought it’d be better just to let him finish his education at RCCC,” Tim Rogers said.

Elephant in the room

The leader of the Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education kicked off Monday’s monthly meeting by responding to the incident.

“I can not begin this meeting without acknowledging the elephant in the room … A teacher at North Rowan High School and the Youtube video that went viral,” Chairman Dr. Jim Emerson said. “Let me assure you that action has been taken at the school level and at the administrative level and the investigation continues.”

School board member Mike Caskey, a Republican candidate for county commissioner, apologized for the negative attention the incident has brought Rowan County.

“I viewed the video in question several times and was appalled and embarrassed by what I observed,” he said. “I think it is evident that several of the Rowan-Salisbury school policies may have been violated including, but not limited to, intimation, bullying, freedom of idea exchange, freedom of speech and profane language use.”

Caskey said the incident “borders on political indoctrination.”

“From my observation, I believe that the teacher in question has a personal affection for the president and could not separate her personal feelings from her professional teaching duties,” he said. “I’m also troubled by the statement the teacher made that one can be arrested for criticizing the president; to my knowledge this has never happened and is the very opposite of what our freedom of speech affords us as citizens.”

Speaking in general terms, the district’s attorney, Ken Soo, warned school board members against speaking out about incidents regarding employee conduct.

“If an employee has concerns about what administration has recommended or what administration has done, they may have an opportunity to appeal to you,” he said. “That’s the reason that it’s important for members not to take or to express a particular position about an employment matter before it comes to you in the hearing process or before it’s otherwise resolved.”

Soo said it’s an issue of due process and fairness.

“Anybody who comes to the board of education is entitled to meet with a fair panel, and if board members have said we have this view or that view out in public beforehand, that could result in litigation.”

[N.S.: Ken Soo is as much a dunce on the law as Tanya Dixon-Healy is. The School Board's first legal obligation is to its students. It cannot withhold judgment on a matter of law affecting their rights, as if it were a mere matter of opinion, and members were obliged to keep an "open mind." They may have conflicting duties, between the rights of students and the rights of employees, but Soo is clearly not interested at all in the law, as opposed to avoiding litigation. But if he kept the board's duties straight, he'd realize that refusing to protect students' rights will guarantee expensive litigation.]

The timeframe of an investigation into misconduct depends on the complexity of the matter, Soo said, again noting that he was speaking in general terms.

Administration mum

Caskey said he’ll wait to voice his opinion about what he believes should happen to the teacher until after the investigation is complete. He also called for the findings to be made public to the extent allowed by law. [That's a matter of discretion, not of law, and so it is fit and proper for Caskey to withhold voicing his opinion on it.]

“Although I believe the evidence that has been brought forth so far is overwhelmingly against the action of the teacher, I have learned during my time in law enforcement that there are always two sides to every story and we should never base our decision on one piece of evidence,” he said. “I believe we should do our due diligence, especially when someone’s job is hanging in the balance.”

Emerson assured community members that the situation will be handed appropriately.

“We will not turn a blind eye to questionable events or fail to deal with them,” Emerson said. “We ask that you do not let one incident overshadow the hundreds of good things occurring in our system every day by hundreds of dedicated staff members and students.”

Emerson pointed out that a number of students and staff were on hand during Monday’s meeting to be recognized for outstanding achievements.

“What does it say about our society when a less than 10-minute YouTube video gets more attention than our athletes and professionals who have spent not minutes, but months and years to reach their goals and help make this a better school system?” he said. “I wish I had a Youtube of the North track team winning their recent state track meet or Salisbury High’s golf team or the national recognition for our achievements in technology.”

School administration has remained mum about the situation, except for a statement released Friday.

However, Superintendent Dr. Judy Grissom has responded to some emails sent to her in response to the video. Several readers forwarded those emails to a Post reporter.

“We have an excellent school system, excellent schools, and teachers,” Grissom wrote. “We do not support or condone this type of behavior and actions have taken place.” [Ooh, but Ken Soo said not to say anything!]

Contact reporter Sarah Campbell at 704-797-7683.

Twitter: twitter.com/posteducation

Facebook: facebook.com/

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