A teacher in Washington state says he lost his job after reading a passage from “To Kill a Mockingbird” that contained historically accurate racist language out loud to students.

Great authors of the past, like Harper Lee and Mark Twain, who wished to expose the ugliness of racism, wrote novels with historically accurate language in them, like “n****r.” Anyone who has read first-hand accounts from that time period knows that even black people used the word constantly (as they still do), because it was part of the vernacular. But the ever self-righteous modern leftists — including many who no doubt listen to rap songs littered with the N-word — bash classic novels with this historically accurate vernacular. Teacher Matthew Mastronardi found that out to his cost.

“Hello, I’m the Spanish teacher in Spokane who lost his job after reading from To Kill a Mockingbird,” Mastronardi posted. He shared a clip of himself reading a passage from the novel, in which the three children —Scout (the narrator), Jem, and Dill — are discussing a type of ghost. “‘Don’t you believe a word he says, Dill,” Scout announces. “Calpurnia says that’s n****r-talk.” Calpurnia, incidentally, is black. Harper Lee was simply being accurate to the Southern dialect of the era. And Mastronardi was just trying to teach the students not to be afraid of words in books. However, he was subsequently given a reprimand over the incident, and soon after, lost his job, according to the documents he shared.

During the 6th period one day, as students were working on an assignment, Mastronardi says he heard students discussing how they were instructed to skip over the n-word when reading out of “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Mastronardi countered, “That's silly; it undermines the book's historical context and disrespects the author's intent to use accurate language.” When challenged by the students, he affirmed he would read the word in context.

One student handed the novel to Mastronardi and challenged, “Do it.” Mastronardi, seeing this as a teachable moment, read the above passage out loud, but did not realize at the time that a student was recording him. It was that clip he shared on X. 

The documents shared by Mastronardi apparently show the principal of the school writing a “Verbal Warning” to him because “you engaged in unprofessional communication during a 6th period Spanish class by using the N-Word in the full context.” Read that sentence a couple of times to appreciate the gross stupidity. The principal accused “you failed to communicate in a civil manner, failed to maintain an atmosphere conducive to learning.” One wonders if a teacher playing a popular rap song with the n-word would have received a similar warning. Heaven forbid a teacher read aloud from a classic novel.

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On May 5, the Human Resources director asked for a meeting, and at the meeting with the director and the school principal, Mastronardi says he was told he had a choice between voluntary resignation or non-renewal of his contract. Mastronardi refused to resign and wrote a rebuttal arguing that reading “a passage from a school-approved novel” and telling students that words “should not be skipped over simply because they make us uncomfortable” despite the “historical context” was not in the least unprofessional. He provided a “teaching moment” that was “requisite for mature members of society.” We spend our whole lives hearing language and opinions that make us uncomfortable. How is the school preparing kids for real life?

Mastronardi added that the superintendent of the West Valley school district gave him a non-renewal notice. The superintendent’s cited examples were supposed concerns from parents, “[e]xercise of poor judgment with students,” and “[c]oncerns about your ability to serve as a positive role model for students.” Mastronardi reasonably believes, however, that the reason he was fired was because he read from “To Kill a Mockingbird” and then refused to grovel to ideologically dictatorial school authorities.

How tragic it is that we have regressed from the true liberality of thought beginning to emerge over 50 years ago in America to the ridiculous point of a teacher being fired apparently because he taught his students not to be terrified of reading aloud from a novel whose point is to urge people not to be racist or narrow-minded.