I agree with you, Tim, and I wonder if there's a deeper issue here as well that needs to be explored. I've been writing a lot these days about schools where LGBTQ teachers and students are being suppressed, and I'm struck by something. It seems like teachers, school administrators, district employees, and even school board members who are clearly on the side of teaching kids honestly about racism and LGBTQ people are very fast to default to "respecting the rules" or giving air to the other side.

When the other side doesn't even use the same playbook.

Remember that kid who had to talk about curly hair in his graduation speech the other day instead of about being gay?

One of the big narratives in that story is that his principle is actually on his side, and only barred him from talking about lgbtq issues because he was respecting the rules.

But that's bullshit. The principal went out of his way, in advance, to proactively ensure the kid's speech was sanitized.

His job wasn't even on the line. He wasn't going to be fired because of a few lines an 18 year old said in a graduation speech. He was never going to be fired for that or suffer any real problems because of that.

He just wanted to avoid controversy. He didn't succeed, but he sure tried. Know what's really screwed up about the narrative over that speech? The video of the principal hugging the student after the speech, the principal using body language to indicate that he was always on the student's side.

That is such bullshit. I don't know what kind of pressure he knuckled under to, to censor that kid's speech, but he sure knuckled under.

If he really is an LGBTQ ally, he didn't show the least appetite for resistance.

I think he's an example of a very broad swathe of people on the left who do exactly the same thing, including the teachers you're writing about today.