The principal of a Georgia elementary school apologized to parents last week after a guest writer discussing his research on a Batman co-creator told a group of fifth graders that the co-creator’s son was gay.
The author, Marc Tyler Nobleman, said the principals of two other elementary schools in the district where he spoke asked him to stick to “appropriate” material and omit this detail of his research. When he refused, his remaining lectures were cancelled.
Mr. Nobleman is the author of “Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman,” a biopic that champions comic book writer Bill Finger’s role in the creation of the superhero, for which cartoonist Bob Kane was long credited Sole Credit.
Mr. Nobleman was invited to the Forsyth County school district north of Atlanta last week to share with students how his research has helped uncover and gain recognition for Mr. Finger’s contributions to the development of Batman, which includes the instantly recognizable hood with the character’s pointy ears heard names like “Bruce Wayne” and “Gotham City”.
Mr Nobleman said he noted in his presentations to students that Fred, Mr Finger’s only child, was gay because that fact played a key role in Mr Finger’s legacy. After he died almost penniless in 1974, many fans believed that without a living heir it would be impossible to secure Mr. Finger official credit for his work on Batman, Mr. Nobleman said. Some assumed, he added, that there was no heir as Fred was gay and died in 1992.
But in the course of Mr. Nobleman’s research, he discovered that Fred Finger did in fact have a daughter, Athena Finger. She helped get her grandfather official credit as the creator of Batman in 2015 from DC Entertainment.
Mr Nobleman said after mentioning that Fred was gay during his first conversation with fifth grade students at Sharon Primary School on August 21, the headmaster gave him a note during his second lecture asking him to “Just sharing the appropriate parts of the story.”
Later that day, Principal Brian Nelson emailed the families of the fifth graders to apologize for what their children had heard. “This is not a topic that we knew he had included, nor is it content that we have approved for our students,” he wrote, adding that “measures have been taken to ensure that this is not in subsequent speeches by Mr. Nobleman were recorded.”
The next day, Mr Nobleman said he gave in to a request from the principal of a second elementary school in the district not to use the word “gay” on the grounds that he felt “trapped”.
The decision was partly against his conscience, he said, because “the purpose” of guest writing is “to give the kids something they might not get in their community.”
During a lecture at a third school on Wednesday, he didn’t leave out the word “gay”.
“For the sake of these children, I can no longer do this,” he told school principal and chief spokesperson for the district, Jennifer Caracciolo.
The remaining presentations at the school were canceled, Ms Caracciolo said, because “what Mr Nobleman shared was a subject that fell short of our state standards” and would have been more appropriate for older students.
“It would almost be like someone giving a speech to kindergarten kids and talking to them about the Holocaust and the horrors of the Holocaust,” she said, adding that the district used the episode to remind its principals that all Instructional materials, including guests, are available Speakers must be “thoroughly screened”.
Republicans in Georgia have introduced bills banning teaching and discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in the classroom, similar to a Florida law that was recently expanded to ban discussion of these topics for all grade levels. Efforts to pass such sweeping legislation, dubbed by critics “don’t say gay,” have so far been unsuccessful in Georgia.
Ms Caracciolo said the district had heard from parents who supported the apology. But other families were shocked, including members of the Forsyth Coalition for Education, a bipartisan group of parents and educators opposed to conservative efforts to limit teaching opportunities in the district.
“Imagine opening an email and reading the message that your sexual orientation, your family, your child, your existence as a gay person warrants an apology and an assurance that no discussion of your existence is allowed,” the coalition wrote in an email to county officials.
The controversy erupted months after the US Department of Education concluded that the Republican-leaning school district may have violated students’ civil rights by removing certain books from its libraries, including The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and All Boys aren”. t Blue,” George M. Johnson’s memoir of growing up black and gay in America.
Dawn Anderson said her son, a fifth grade student at Sharon Elementary School, came home thrilled from Mr. Nobleman’s presentation. She said she wasn’t surprised that given the county’s political leanings, the school felt the need to let parents know the word “gay” was mentioned.
But Mr Nobleman’s mention of the fact that Mr Finger’s son was gay was “relevant to the story” and not a form of sex education, Ms Anderson said. In reply to the principal’s email, she wrote, “‘Gay’ is not a four-letter word.”
