School teacher placed on leave after making a shocking comment about Greta Thunberg
A teacher from Iowa was placed on administrative leave after making a threatening remark about Greta Thunberg.
The 16-year-old climate change activist headed to Iowa City in the US to join a climate change strike, with demonstrators calling on the University of Iowa and the city to operate on clean energy by 2030.
Before the event, Waterloo West High teacher Matt Baish commented on a Facebook post about her visit, saying “Don’t have my sniper rifle”.
A spokesperson for the school district said that they had sent a letter out to families and staff of the high school and said that the employee in question was being put on leave.
“We wanted to make you aware of a social media situation involving one of our employees,” the letter said. “The nature of the content shared rose to the level of putting this employee on administrative leave pending an investigation. We appreciate your patience as we sort through the details and thank you for respecting the process.”
Naturally, Baish has since removed his comment on the Facebook post, which was written by a 27-year-old former student of Baish’s, Mason Severson.
Mr Severson told The New York Times his comment “was insensitive and taken too far”. “It wasn’t a joke,” he said. “It wasn’t baseless. It was irrefutably vile and wrong.”
Thunberg at the rally was as passionate as ever, saying that those present should “never give up”.
“No matter what, we need to continue, no matter how hopeless the situation may seem like, we must always carry on and we must never allow ourselves to give up,” she said. “That is simply not an option.”