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Popular Information reports:
Vicki Baggett, an English teacher at Northview High School in Florida, is pushing for the Escambia County School District to remove nearly 150 books from school libraries. In an interview last month, Baggett told Popular Information that she is challenging books like When Wilma Rudolph Played Basketball — the story of a sprinter who overcame racial discrimination to become an Olympic champion — because she’s concerned the book could make white students “feel uncomfortable.”
While Baggett claims she is keeping inappropriate content away from children, her former and current students tell Popular Information that Baggett openly promoted racist and homophobic beliefs in class. Peggy Sunday, who graduated from Northview in 2021, told Popular Information that, during a 10th-grade English class, Baggett said she opposed interracial marriage. “[Baggett] said in the Bible somewhere it says that it is a sin for races to mix together.”
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4. Another student in the class, Stone Pressley, recalled the same incident. Pressley said that Baggett said she was opposed to “race mixing” because “she wanted to preserve cultures” and “didn’t want everyone to turn the same color eventually.”https://t.co/fZGNFPY1mx
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) January 9, 2023
5. Another student in the class, Hamza Jacobs, confirmed Baggett’s comments opposing “race mixing.” A fourth student in the class, who asked to remain anonymous due to the nature of the allegations and Baggett’s standing in a small community, also confirmed the episode.
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) January 9, 2023
6. Sunday said that Baggett is known throughout Northview as an “openly racist teacher.”
According to Sunday, Baggett then asked two Black students if they “knew how to swim” because “most black people don’t know how to swim.”https://t.co/fZGNFPY1mx
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) January 9, 2023
7. The incident was confirmed by one of the Black students targeted by Baggett. That student said Baggett “asked me and another girl of color in my class ‘could we swim because black people usually can’t.'” Jacobs and Pressley also confirmed the incidenthttps://t.co/fZGNFPY1mx
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) January 9, 2023
8. A Black student in the class also alleged Baggett said that “she didn’t understand why black people get tattoos in black ink” because “you can’t even see them”
Sunday said Baggett questioned why a young woman wore hair extensions and asked if her hair “was heavy or hurt her.”
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) January 9, 2023
9. Popular Information previously reported that, in 2015, Baggett posted an image of the Confederate Flag to her Facebook page. Baggett defended the posting, because “everyone in my clan fought in the Civil War” and she was not “ashamed of that.”https://t.co/0bAI79Rbed pic.twitter.com/rwvvNYLY86
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) January 9, 2023
10. Baggett added in a December 2022 interview that she was a member of the Daughters of the Confederacy, which has been designated as part of the Neo-Confederate movement.https://t.co/0bAI79Rbed
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) January 9, 2023
11. The Escambia County School District didn’t answer detailed questions about Baggett’s behavior but provided this statement : “We categorically condemn any form of discriminatory speech. Our mission is to reach all students, regardless of race, background, or gender identity.”
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) January 9, 2023