Are We Going Backwards?

Back in the Fifties, everyone thought that there was a commie hiding everywhere, and the hunt was on! Then it was like “Hey wait a minute! What about those gays? The gays are cahoots with commies! Lets go after them!” The mob turned and then they were looking for gays everywhere, under desks, in the bathroom… yeah, yeah in the bathrooms lets go after them there. What about our children! OMG the children are being taught by gay men! OMG!

So you think the Lavender Scare (You can read about the Lavender Scare here at the National Archives.) is over? We now live in the Twenty-First Century! We have protections now, we have laws!

Wrong!

Economics professor calls out UNC for secretly recording during class: 'Crushed in a lot of ways'
WTVD
ByAkilah Davis
May 2, 2024

A UNC Chapel Hill professor is calling out the university for launching an apparent investigation and secretly recording him during class.

Larry Chavis has taught economics there for 18 years. He believes the climate on the campus doesn't always feel accepting of marginalized groups.

"At times I've felt like I'm the Nikole Hannah-Jones that no one knows about," said Chavis. "There are times I left the building crying with people asking me to not even mention to students that I would prefer they not wear Native American mascot gear in my indigenous studies class."

He spoke with Eyewitness News outside the Kenan-Flagler Business School where he described himself as outspoken and someone who refuses to keep quiet about injustices.

They had the policy where they could video record the classes in secret, Inside Higher Ed brought out something else about the case.

“Notice is not required to record classes, and we do record classes without notice in response to concerns raised by students,” Lundblad’s letter said.

 

[...]

Chavis, a member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, has been an outspoken advocate for Indigenous and LGBTQ+ rights in ways that have sometimes pitted him against university officials, he told Inside Higher Ed in April

Chavis said that whatever the reason for his contract lapse, he worries that the “concerning class content” which Lundblad said prompted the classroom recordings was related to his “strong support of LGBTQ rights.” Chavis said the office of Equal Opportunity Compliance has launched an investigation into the recordings, and that he’s talked to investigators.

Did the fact that he is gay have anything to do with his firing? Well we don’t know and that is the thing, we do not know but it seems awful funny that after eighteen years they fire him. In a NBC News article they write about the North Carolina version of the “Don’t Say Gay” law,

“It’s really hard at times and it feels like there’s a lot of people who really would just rather you not exist, rather you just not be there,” Milo said. “And like the biggest middle finger you can give them is just to keep being there, to keep existing.”

Was that why he was fired?