English teacher Taylor Lifka ‘17 was reinstated after being place on leave over the posters in her virtual classroom.

Lifka, a psychology major at Denison, was the subject of a recent NBC news article that noted she had been placed on leave due to Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ posters on her virtual classroom.

The article notes:

Taylor Lifka, an English teacher at the Roma High School in Roma, Texas, a border town of about 10,000 people, was placed on administrative leave Sunday after parents complained about the posters.

School officials briefly placed Taylor Lifka on administrative leave after parents complained about the posters in her virtual classroom.

Speaking to NBC News, Lifka, 25, said the experience of having national attention turned toward her small classroom has been “overwhelming.”

“Our nation is in a really divisive state right now, and so when something like this comes out that a teacher is being placed on administrative leave because of parents’ concerns over teaching tolerance in the classroom, that’s a bigger question,” she said.

In a statement shared with reporters, Roma Independent School District Superintendent Carlos Guzman said the district “regrets that this matter has become a point of controversy.”

“It was never the intention of the district to indicate anything less than full support for the concepts of equality and student safety,” Guzman said.

August 31, 2020