Chapelle says it he wins the Mark Twain Award. An educator uses it in better context...BAM

I'm getting pretty sick of this lunacy. The folks running the McAuley Liberal Arts High School are bunch of woke horse's asses.

Longtime Mother McAuley teacher fired after using racial slur in class discussion about sports teams

By MIKE NOLAN

DAILY SOUTHTOWN |

FEB 03, 2022 AT 6:40 PM

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DeVoto, who was a teacher at Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School in Chicago for nearly 42 years. She was fired Jan. 31 after she used a racial slur during a lesson in her AP world history class.

It was one terrible word that ended Mary DeVoto’s nearly 42-year career at Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School on Chicago’s Southwest Side, and she said she wishes she’d never said it.

During a Jan. 28 discussion in her world history class, she used the N-word during a talk about Native American culture, where the conversation with students had evolved into sports team names, such as the former moniker for the Washington, D.C. professional football team.

A student asked why the former name was offensive, and DeVoto said she was “trying to emphasize that that is as abhorrent (to Native Americans) as the N-word, which I used in full,” she said Thursday.

“I can’t believe it came out of my mouth,” she said.

DeVoto was pulled out of her classroom that day and suspended, then fired this past Monday. An online petition to seek her reinstatement has been established by her family, while some parents of McAuley students are applauding the decision by administration of the all-girls Catholic high school in Chicago’s Mount Greenwood neighborhood to fire DeVoto.

The classroom discussion was captured on an audio recording, which was quickly shared on social media and resulted in DeVoto’s suspension and later dismissal.

School officials declined requests for comment Thursday, but issued a statement to the Southtown saying it “does not condone this language and is deeply saddened by the hurt and pain this has caused our students and community.”

“With the intent to emphasize the abhorrence of slurs, the teacher wrongfully compared and egregiously miscommunicated two racial slurs, including using the N-word in its entirety,” the school statement said.

“As an educational institution, we recognize mistakes happen to each one of us, and we make every effort, regardless of the popularity of such decisions, to embrace the opportunity to learn from such teachable moments. To embrace mistakes means we must learn not to repeat such behaviors, to demonstrate clear remorse and to be able to rebuild trust that has been lost,” the school said.

Parents of students who were in the class contacted McAuley administrators, who investigated and later determined they were “not confident the language usage would cease and trust could be rebuilt,” according to the statement.

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“Based upon the comprehensive investigation into the incident, we are deeply saddened that these actions were made necessary because of a subsequent conversation with the teacher in which the same racial slur was communicated in its entirety several times despite clear and formal directives to stop,” the school statement said.

DeVoto said that when she met with school administrators Monday, before her firing, she offered to make any apology necessary to repent.

“I said ‘what can we do to help fix it?,’” she said. “I want to stand up in front of my girls and say I made a mistake. I want to do the right thing.”

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DeVoto insists that, although she now regrets it, she was trying to equate the football team’s rejected name and N-word as on equal footing as being categorized as offensive.

Mary DeVoto, who was a teacher at Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School in Chicago's Mount Greenwood neighborhood for nearly 42 years.

Mary DeVoto, who was a teacher at Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School in Chicago's Mount Greenwood neighborhood for nearly 42 years. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)

“It still shouldn’t have been said,” she said. “It’s the N-word and the R-word, and Native Americans refer to it as the R-word.”

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Her three daughters are graduates of McAuley, and DeVoto had also been the chairman for several years of the school’s National Honor Society. DeVoto said she founded a diversity club at the school in the 1980s to “give a voice to children of different ethnic backgrounds.”

In a statement, the school said it has, over the past two years, “enacted a comprehensive, multitiered plan to foster a community that honors the dignity of every individual,” and that faculty and staff have attended training sessions focused on culturally responsive education.

Stephanie Rahman, a 2006 McAuley graduate and one of DeVoto’s three daughters, said she and her family hope the school reconsiders its decision to fire her mother and that, as an alternative to firing, DeVoto could take part in additional training the school has provided.

mnolan@tribpub.com