A history teacher in California has been suspended after he compared Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler during a lesson.
Frank Navarro, who is a Holocaust scholar, was placed on paid leave after the school received a complaint from a parent about one of his lessons in which he drew comparisons between the US president-elect and the leader of Nazi Germany.
Mr Navarro was asked to leave Mountain View High School, where he has taught for 40 years, but the teacher has argued that it was “historically factual” to make the comparison.
He added that Hitler’s persecution of Jews had “remarkable parallels” to Mr Trump’s attacks on immigrants, while both pledged to make their countries “great again”.
“This feels like we’re trying to squash free speech,” the history teacher told the Monterey Herald. “Everything I talk about is factually based. They can go and check it out. It’s not propaganda or bias if it’s based on hard facts.”
Protests over Trump election
Protests have broken out across the US following the election of Mr Trump, who relied heavily during the campaign on language that many felt promoted anger and division. Schools are reporting incidents of bullying in the aftermath of his victory.
Speaking to the Mountain View’s student newspaper The Oracle, Mr Navarro added: “My intention was to connect the history of the 20th century with this ongoing history now.
“It is consequential. As a fellow, as a writer, I don’t see any other way around it. I feel strongly about this: to stand quiet in the face of bigotry and to turn your eyes away from it is to back up the bigotry, and that’s not what I, or any history teacher, should be doing in our work.”
Principal Dave Grissom and superintendent Jeff Harding said Mr Navarro had been put on a “time out”.
In a letter to parents, Mr Grissom said he had an obligation to maintain an “emotionally safe environment” in his school after the election result.
A petition to have Mr Navarro reinstated into the classroom had attracted more than 30,000 signatures on Change.org as of Monday.
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