Friday, March 11, 2005 | 10:05 a.m.
Black Las Vegas residents urged the Clark County School Board Thursday night to reinstate a first-year social studies teacher at Canyon Springs High School in North Las Vegas after a controversial transfer.
Canyon Springs was drawn into public debate over free speech earlier this year. When teacher Ron Turner authored a play entitled "I've Got to Keep Moving" to commemorate Black History Month, some of the school's administrators opposed the use of racial epithets in the text.
Turner refused to edit the play and students rallied outside the school to support his decision. Turner was put on paid administrative leave and then assigned to an alternative school for students expelled from regular classrooms.
Turner said he could see a transfer to another school if he had hit a child or faculty member or embezzled money.
"I did nothing wrong," Turner told the board. "To treat me like an animal is wrong."
Community activist Marzette Lewis said that if Turner were not reinstated at Canyon Springs, then the black community would ask the U.S. Justice and Education departments to investigate the incident.
"Is Mr. Turner going to be allowed to go back and teach?" Lewis asked.
The School Board did not take any action Thursday night because there was no related item on the agenda.
Las Vegas resident Alexez Kieta said black history is still outside mainstream history books in the county. Turner was simply trying to put black history in context, she said.
"If we don't know where we've been, we could repeat past mistakes," Kieta said.
Edna Jeger called Las Vegas an "Afro-phobic" community.
"This country was built on the backs of African slaves," Jeger said.
Rancho High School English literature teacher Linda Terry said there was no black history program at the school, so she did her own research and taught the students about Thomas Jefferson's relations with black slave Sally Hemmings and the tortures black Americans endured to learn to read.
"We are tremendously harming our children," Terry, whose parents escaped Nazi Germany, said.
Asked by School Board President Larry Mason to wrap up her remarks, Terry replied, "I cannot sum it up. It is the worst chapter in our history. It is not being taught."
Longtime Las Vegas black activist Gene Collins, a former assemblyman and former head of the NAACP, however, agrees with the School District's actions. He said that Turner should not be allowed to return to Canyon Springs.
Collins said he read the play.
"It degrades African Americans," he said. "Some of us think the play is downright vulgar."
Canyon Springs' former principal, Roger Gonzalez, moved to an administrative position in human resources in February. Gonzalez had been a middle school principal for several years before opening Canyon Springs in August.
His replacement, Ronan Matthew, said he supported the School Board's action in Turner's case as well.
School Board member Shirley Barber asked Superintendent Carlos Garcia to include in texts the histories of all ethnic groups that played a role in shaping America.
Garcia said that new textbooks include every ethnic group.
"Publishers are responding," he said. "We live in a very different world."
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