A California school district has confirmed plans to fire an Antifa teacher caught in a hidden video declaring his support for the anti-fascist movement, saying he will radicalize his students as revolutionaries.
The Natomas Unified School District in Sacramento has placed Gabriel Gipe on paid leave while school officials conduct their investigations and study further legal actions against the Antifa teacher. Gipe is an AP government teacher at the Inderkum High School.
In a statement to the Sacramento Bee, Superintendent Chris Evans said that Gipe's video was "disturbing" to watch. Gipe's comments in the video also undermined the trust the public had in the school.
Project Veritas and the Hidden Video
Project Veritas, a conservative group, took the 12-minute hidden video of Gipe as he spoke off-campus about his support for Antifa. In the video, he told an unidentified person that he has "180 days" to turn the students into "revolutionaries."
Gipe also said that he has an Antifa flag on display in the classroom. While some students complained about it, Gipe told them that the fascists will always feel uncomfortable about the Antifa flag.
These flags, as well as the signages and posters at Gipe's AP class, have since been taken down by school district officials. They also found out that the Antifa teacher had a stash of rubber stamps with quotes and phrases from Fidel Castro, Kim Jung Un, and Josef Stalin. The teacher used these stamps to mark the students' work.
Gipe also said in the video that he gives an extra credit assignment to students who show up at protest rallies which he logs in his calendar to show to his students. Some kids have attended these organized gatherings and took photos or wrote reflection papers for the extra credit. The school district found that parents were unaware of these activities and said that the Antifa teacher was both "unprofessional and irresponsible" in encouraging students to go to rallies.
According to The Sacramento Bee, Gipe met with the person filming the video after responding to an email from the school district. A parent from Florida planned to move their child to Inderkum and asked to meet with the AP teachers since they are a progressive-thinking family.
Parents Want Teacher Fired
Meanwhile, parents have asked the school board to fire Gipe and change some policies to ensure that this incident will never happen again. While some students said they support the Antifa teacher, others expressed they were disturbed by the revelations.
The school district extended their apologies to any student who might have been uncomfortable in Gipe's class in the last three years. While AP government classes may have controversial topics, Gipe crossed the line and violated trust.
Project Veritas edited the video release before it was made public. A representative of the organization declined to say if there are plans to release the full and unedited version of Gipe's talk. Reports cited that the teacher has been receiving threats since the video came out.
Related Article: Parents Given Option To Let Children Repeat a Grade or Course if Online Learning Was Hard
