(LifeSiteNews) — A left-wing high school teacher in Tennessee has threatened to leave education over pushback to classroom indoctrination, in a viral video conservatives are taking as a hopeful sign that their efforts are bearing fruit.
On January 24, popular watchdog Twitter account Libs of TikTok highlighted a social media video by a high school teacher complaining about education being “taken over” by people unsympathetic to LGBT “pride” flags in classrooms.
Tennessee teacher says she’s quitting because people who don’t want LGBTQ+ propaganda in classrooms are taking over education pic.twitter.com/8pLKCNWAj3
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 24, 2023
“I have no idea what comment this video goes back to, but the comment like there’s a groomer flag in the background, I was able to pull a screen grab and if you see my old classroom, I have my pride flag right there,” she says, referring to a comment reading, “You should quit- I see the groomer flag in the background.”
“Here’s the thing: I am going to quit. I’m 100% going to quit,” she continued. “And it is because, not comments like this, but it is because people like this have taken over or [are] starting to take over education, and education is not what it once was and it’s not worth it anymore. I support every single one of my students no matter what their views are. This, it just, get f***ed.”
The Daily Mail identifies the teacher as Randi Lee, who has been teaching since 2017 and, on top of signaling LGBT “pride,” has admitted in past videos that she “bucks the system on a regular basis” by discussing the issue of race in math class.
Lee told the Mail that her outburst “isn’t necessarily a big announcement. I decided at the beginning of the school year that I only had one or two more years left in me.” In a follow-up video, she said that her plans to leave were not immediate: “I’m trying to buy a house. I gotta stay employed.”
Responses to the original Libs of TikTok tweet were full of celebratory comments articulating that the self-removal of teachers like Lee was, in Right Wing News founder John Hawkins’ words, “a feature, not a bug” of efforts to rein in issue advocacy from classrooms.
Across the country, left-wing lectures and materials on LGBT and racial issues in taxpayer-subsidized classrooms and libraries have prompted electoral revolts and new policies in states such as Arizona, Florida, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Virginia.
In September, a New York Times/Sienna College poll found that 70% of respondents “oppose allowing public school teachers to provide classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity to children in elementary school,” including 53% of Democrats.