High School Football Coach Fired After Objecting to Woke Curriculum

This 2004 file photo is a general view of the field before the game between the Baltimore
Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images
Dr. Susan Berry

A popular head high school football coach was allegedly fired by a Massachusetts public school after objecting to the racially-charged curriculum taught to his children in the school district.

The Dedham Public Schools district terminated David Flynn after he disagreed with the move to a social justice school curriculum, the Daily Wire reported. Flynn has two children in the district, one in middle school and the other in elementary school.

Flynn, head coach since 2011, subsequently filed a lawsuit against the district’s superintendent, Michael Welch, the high school principal, Jim Fonest, and the high school’s athletic director, Stephen Traister, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

Judicial Watch is representing Flynn and tweeted he was “removed as head football coach after raising concerns about his daughter’s 7th grade history class curriculum being changed to include coursework on race/gender equality & more”:

“Cancel culture has come to high school football,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. “Coach Flynn was fired for exercising his constitutional rights to object as a citizen and father to an extremist and racially inflammatory school curriculum in his child’s history class.”

In the statement, Judicial Watch stated Flynn was fired “after exercising his right as a citizen to raise concerns about his daughter’s seventh-grade history class curriculum being changed to include biased coursework on politics, race, gender equality, and diversity.”

The lawsuit explains further:

During the first week of school, Plaintiff and his wife observed that the instruction their daughter was receiving in “World Geography and Ancient History I” was unrelated to the ancient history and world geography subjects described on the Dedham Public Schools website. Instead, the instruction concerned issues of race, gender, stereotypes, prejudices, discrimination, and politics, among others. In one assignment, Plaintiff’s daughter was asked to consider various “risk factors” and “mitigating factors” that two people – one identified as “white” and the other identified as “black” – purportedly might use to assess each other on a city street. Included among the various factors were skin color, gender, age, physical appearance, and attire. “Black,” “aggressive body language,” and “wrong neighborhood” were among the “risk factors” purportedly assessed by the person identified as “white.” “White” and “police officer” were among the “risk factors” purportedly assessed by the person identified as “black.”

Additionally, the lawsuit refers to an observation made by Flynn and his wife that the “instruction materials included a cartoon image of their daughter’s teacher – a ‘Memoji’ – wearing a Black Lives Matter t-shirt, which Plaintiff and his wife reasonably interpreted as the teacher expressing support for the Black Lives Matter movement during class time.”

As Judicial Watch explained, after observing the changes in their daughter’s curriculum, Flynn and his wife first contacted the history teacher and the school principal, then the district superintendent and members of the Dedham School Committee.

“On more than one occasion the Flynns asked for assistance in resolving the issues with the curriculum,” Judicial Watch noted. “Ultimately, in October 2020, the Flynns removed their children from school.”

In January, Flynn was called to a meeting with Superintendent Welch, Principal Fonest, and Athletic Director Traister, during which he was told the school was “going in a different direction” with the football program.

“Minutes later, the superintendent, high school principal, and athletic director released a public statement, stating that Flynn was removed as head football coach because he ‘expressed significant philosophical differences with the direction, goals, and values of the school district,’” Judicial Watch stated.

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