As has been widely reported, on March 14 Marine Reserves Major Terry Thomas sent a letter to the Seattle School Board demanding an explanation and apology after he was invited to speak at West Seattle High School on an ostensibly objective panel about the war in Iraq. (The Stranger printed his letter two weeks ago.) His complaint? When he arrived at the school auditorium he was ambushed by a theatrical antiwar protest, a skit portraying dead Iraqi civilians as if indiscriminately murdered by American servicemen. The skit was insulting to the combat veterans present. When Thomas, a friend of mine, fought in southern Iraq in 2003, the local Shiites welcomed him warmly, grateful to the American troops for liberating them from Saddam's brutal regime. He was hurt to see a hometown high school misrepresent his service as a war crime.

Initial media reports about the incident claimed the skit was organized by students and that no staff were even aware of the content. But in their responses to Thomas' letter over the last two weeks, school officials acknowledged that the entire event was organized under staff supervision and in violation of district policies against teacher-imposed prejudice. Indeed, they admitted that staff members were in the skit itself.

The fact that faculty guided the prejudiced production reflects a dysfunction in the school's management and work ethic. It's wholly inappropriate for public school teachers to indoctrinate their captive and impressionable audience with their personal ideological agendas.

Now school officials are bumbling to explain what happened and to apologize to the veterans and to the public at large.

Thomas obtained a meeting with and a personal apology from School Board President Brita Butler-Wall, but the board has yet to take public action.

Thanks to Thomas' letter, West Seattle High School Principal Susan Dersé also issued a letter to the school's families in which she explained the event, acknowledging that faculty advisors and administrators were in charge.

Of course it's appropriate for high schools to discuss controversial topics, such as the war in Iraq. But Dersé's letter appears to be a lot of words without much follow-up. The letter indicated that she is "continuing to work with those students and their advisors in understanding this sensitive issue" and that "our school … honor[s] and celebrate[s] our veterans every year and in many ways." When I asked Dersé exactly how she's following up with the students and advisors and how the school celebrates veterans, her only response was that I had permission to quote from her letter. Nor was I allowed to speak with any staff members involved in the event. I wanted to ask them whether they're also teaching the students that Americans freed and healed Saddam's political prisoners, saved Kurds and other minorities from ethnic cleansing, and initiated the first-ever real elections in that part of the world. After all, most parents who send their kids to public school expect the teachers to expose the students to a realistic balance of facts, not just force-feed a diet of bogus anti-military propaganda.

editor@thestranger.com