Tensions stretched taut at a Lee County School board meeting Tuesday night as residents clashed over politics, freedom of speech, and what can and can’t be in a classroom.
From one side of the Lee County School Board building, protesters yelled “sexuality has no business in the classroom,” and “Stop Woke Indoctrination”; while counter-protesters yelled “Let teachers teach,” and “No more hate.”
Lee GOP organized a protest over a flag hung up in a Fort Myers school that they say promotes “woke indoctrination” and violated the “Stop Woke Act.”
The flag, which is hung in a Riverdale High School classroom bulletin board in Fort Myers, spells out “Hate Has No Home Here” and is covered in hearts that contain the American flag, a peace symbol, the words Black Lives Matter, and the LGBTQ+ and Trans flags.
“We want to take politics out of education, that’s the biggest thing that we are here for,” said Michael Thompson, the chairman of the Lee County Republican Executive Committee. “We are really just trying to get the district to realize that they might have a policy that they are not enforcing.”