White Gay Student wants Teacher Fired for “Black Fag” Remark

(Oct. 13) Illinois High School senior Jordan Hunt, who came out last spring, has filed a complaint against teacher Dave Burk for allegedly making a racist and homophobic comment during class.

"I'm personally offended," said Hunter.  "I just think it's completely unacceptable for a person, in that position, to make any comments that are discriminatory toward any group in a classroom setting."

Hunter said during a lesson on tax dollars on Oct. 5th, consumer education teacher Burk was discussing the National Endowment for the Arts when he posed a question to his students implying that black, queer students should not get government funding:

“How would you feel about your tax dollars going to pay some black fag in New York to take pictures of other black fags?”

Hunter said several other students have contacted him, saying Burk repeated the same phrase in all his classes.

"This was not a slip of the tongue thing. This is something he wrote out in his lesson plan for the day," Hunter said.

School Board member Matt Henry said Hunter's allegations may come up in discussion during Tuesday night’s meeting, but that the board's plan is to leave the issue to Assistant Superintendent for Personnel Services Craig Collins.

"We heard about it, and pretty much it's a personnel issue," Henry said. "I understand (Collins) and the principal handled it."

Board member Mark Grosso said he believes it will be discussed officially in the closed session of the meeting, as is typical for personnel issues.

Hunter said he plans to attend the meeting.

"I want to be as informed as possible about what's going on about the situation, because the school isn't really telling us what they're planning to do about it," Hunter said.

While the School District's bylaws prohibit harassment based on sex, race, religion, national origin and disability, specifically banning slurs for race, religion and national origin, there is no rule specifically banning teachers from using slurs based on gender identity or sexual orientation.