Art teacher says wearing Black Lives Matter face mask got her fired from Texas school

An art teacher says she was fired from a Texas school after refusing to stop wearing a Black Lives Matter mask.

Lillian White donned homemade face masks while attending in-person training sessions at Great Hearts Academy Western Hills, a charter school in San Antonio, in July, KENS reported. The masks featured phrases such as “Black Lives Matter” and “Silence is Violence.”

“I didn’t think it was going to be an issue at all. I guess that’s pretty naive of me,” White told Texas Public Radio. “But I didn’t think at my school (wearing a Black Lives Matter mask) was going to cause this brouhaha.”

White said she wore the masks for a week and a half and that no one said a word, save for a few teachers who asked if she had extras, according to KENS. Then, she received a text message from the assistant principal.

“We’d like you to stop wearing these masks anymore, parents will be coming around more and we don’t discuss the current political climate,” White said of the text, according to KENS.

But White continued to wear her masks and emailed school leaders. Several of the emails were posted online.

The emails outline the text exchange White had with the assistant principal and called on Great Hearts to put a statement on its website that it “supports the lives of not just three men, but of all of the Black, brown, or indigenous children at our school, all over San Antonio, Texas, America... throughout the entire world.”

After several exchanges with school leaders, White posted on Facebook Aug. 17 that she’d been temporarily suspended from her job.

On Sept. 4, roughly a week before students were set to return, White received an email from the school’s headmaster, Matthew Vlahovich, telling her she no longer had a job, Texas Public Radio reported.

The day before, White had sent an email to Vlahovich explaining that she was committed to wearing a Black Lives Matter mask until she could get Great Hearts president Daniel Scoggin to implement an anti-racism action plan, even if it meant she would “have to show up and get sent home.”

Vlahovich responded that the school respected White’s convictions, “however, the organization maintains a dress code in order to sustain a scholastic culture of learning in which students and faculty participate together across time,” according to the email posted online.

“Your decision and refusal to report to work as directed is a ‘quit’ without good cause, and will be recorded as such effective September 4, 2020,” the email said.

In a statement to McClatchy News, Scoggin said Great Hearts does not issue public comment on personnel matters.

“On the question related to face coverings, Great Hearts enacted, in this unprecedented pandemic environment, a policy that face coverings have no external messages. This policy was authored by school leaders and teachers in service to the learning environment of our classrooms,” the statement said.

“Great Hearts was founded and exists today to serve the innate dignity and worth of every human being. We stand with the Black community and all who are suffering. Great Hearts deplores bigotry and its crushing effects on all those subjected to it. Great Hearts is committed to an America where racism, violence and injustice do not happen, because such acts find no home in the hearts of a great people.”

Parents had mixed responses to White’s dismissal.

Some said Great Hearts has always had a strict rule against any political or pop-culture references on clothing, adding that they think a teacher wearing a Black Lives Matter mask is inappropriate, according to Texas Public Radio.

Others have supported White and said the Black Lives Matter movement is not merely a political issue, but a human rights issue.

“If my kid walks into a classroom and sees a teacher that has a mask that says Black Lives Matter or silence is violence…I would venture to think that he would be more comfortable with that teacher,” parent Alison Collins, who is Black, told Texas Public Radio.

Despite no longer working at the school, White said she’s still trying to get Great Hearts to put an anti-racism plan in place.

“I think that all this backlash, especially the negativity from parents and the fact that I was fired because of this, means that this is a conversation they still need to have,” White told KENS.