New York school district officials have placed a high school English teacher on leave for having assigned students a writing composition that sought to persuade the reader that “Jews are evil”.
The composition assigned by a tenth grade teacher involved research into Nazi propaganda, and included making the assumption that the teacher was a Nazi government official. The students were then required to write a paper persuading the official that “Jews are evil” in order to convince the official of their “loyalty” to the Nazi cause.
District Superintendent Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard held a news conference Friday apologizing for the assignment, which was brought to administrators' attention by a parent of one of the students.
The Times Union in Albany reported that the teacher was not in class Friday and has been placed on leave. According to the paper, one-third of the students refused to do the assignment. The school district has not named the teacher, who was described as a veteran teacher.