A substitute teacher at Beverly Hills High School says she was fired due to posts she shared on Facebook criticizing Donald Trump and condemning the behavior of students at a MAGA rally on campus, where Black students reported being harassed.
Joanie Garratt retired last year after teaching at the Beverly Hills Unified School District for almost 30 years. She started a monthlong substitute-teaching assignment on Nov. 4 and said she was outraged to receive a call from an assistant superintendent on Wednesday dismissing her. She said her online political posts were cited as the reason for her firing.
“I was shocked; I thought I’d get a warning,” she told The Times. “I didn’t say anything [about Trump] in class. I know not to say anything in class. But I am disgusted with MAGA, and Beverly Hills High School has become MAGA.”
A spokesperson for the district did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Garratt’s dismissal.
Last week, a group of mostly male students held a raucous pro-Trump rally at Beverly Hills High School. Students wore “Make America Great Again” T-shirts and hats, toted at least two Trump cardboard cutouts and cheered loudly as a school security guard brandished a Trump banner.
At a recent Board of Trustees meeting, around a dozen Black students expressed their concerns about the rally, saying they were subjected to harassment, intimidation and racial slurs. Last week, BHHS Principal Drew Stewart sent a message to families saying the school would protect students’ free speech rights but would limit their ability to congregate in large groups so that all students felt safe on campus.
On Nov. 7, Garratt wrote on Facebook that pro-Trump students “harassed & intimidated many other non-maga students and specifically targeted the class where the Black Student Union was meeting, yelling all kinds of racial slurs.”
“Some students arrived at school truly upset & even crying only to be bullied later by their classmates,” she added. She wrote that Trump, and not the administration, was to blame for this behavior.
In other recent posts and comments, she said she was “ashamed to be an American” and that Trump supporters “worship a fascist.” Garratt, who is Jewish, also said some Jews had “aligned with the devil” in supporting Trump.
The educator had a history of anti-Trump posts on Facebook prior to being asked to take on the substitute-teaching post.
On Wednesday evening, she posted that she was dismissed from her position, writing, “I WEAR THIS AS BADGE OF HONOR and stand with all the teachers, past & present, who will be persecuted for expressing their views in public forum. SHAME ON BHUSD.”
Other teachers in Southern California have also been scrutinized due to their reaction to the election.
In Moreno Valley, a high school teacher was placed on leave following a racially charged anti-Trump outburst in the classroom where he said that many Latino men who support Trump want to be white.
And at Cerritos High School, a teacher allegedly left her classroom because one of her students was wearing MAGA attire, according to reporting from ABC7.
Unlike these two incidents, however, Garratt said she did not share her political views in the classroom.
During Tuesday’s Board of Trustees meeting, several Black students at the high school said there was already a racism problem at the school and that the issue got worse during the election.
“I’ve had to deal with a lot of racism my entire life, but coming to Beverly [Hills High School], I’ve unfortunately had to experience a lot more,” said Jurnee Burrell-Williams, president of the Black Student Union. “I kind of taught myself to get used to it and ignore it, but the week of the election it became utterly impossible to just ignore it.”
Teacher Bella Ivory said she felt scared when rallying students shouted hateful curse words outside the classroom where she was helping facilitate a Black Student Union meeting last week.
Several board members expressed dismay at the reports of student behavior during the rally, and Supt. Michael Bregy said he would be reaching out to those who spoke at the meeting as well as concerned parents.
