Black History Month Scandal Sends Teachers Packing

LOS ANGELES (March 11) -- Three city schoolteachers who included posters of O.J. Simpson, flamboyant former basketball player Dennis Rodman and drag queen RuPaul in a Black History Month parade will be reassigned, the head of the Los Angeles Unified School District said today.

The three teachers had already been suspended without pay for three days after parents and community leaders complained about the inclusion of the controversial figures in the elementary school parade last month. District Superintendent Ramon Cortines told the Los Angeles Times today he didn't think the teachers were racially motivated or intended to mock African-American history, but said it "was an exercise of very poor judgment." The teachers, who have not been publicly identified, reportedly are white.

The local NAACP had earlier called on Cortines to fire the teachers and reprimand the principal, and the incident drew a scathing rebuke by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who said he was "shocked and outraged."

"These teachers undermined the school's well-intentioned celebration, and they did so at the expense of elementary school students," the mayor said, "Their actions were not only cynical but did a terrible disservice to the students, their families and all of the teachers who work hard on a daily basis to build trust and a productive learning environment."

The parade came just after a racial dust-up a couple of hours south, when members of a University of California at San Diego fraternity held a mocking "Compton cookout," sparking outrage and a "teach-in" that itself ended in a walkout by angry African-American students and their supporters.

The parade was at Wadsworth Elementary School, in South Los Angeles, which had a list of approved African-American heroes and historical figures that teachers could draw on. Simpson was on the list because it had not been updated since his arrest on charges he had killed his ex-wife and a companion. Simpson, a college and professional football star and longtime television sportscaster, was acquitted of the murders but is in prison in Nevada after being convicted of trying to recover some of his sports memorabilia at gunpoint.

The teachers reportedly penciled in the names of Rodman and RuPaul themselves, and the list was not reviewed by their principal, who has since issued a letter of apology to parents. Posters of more respected figures, from President Barack Obama to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., were also included in the parade.

Simpson, Rodman and RuPaul should never have been included, Cortines told KNBC News, though he did not explain why he thought Rodman and RuPaul carried the same baggage as Simpson, a convicted felon.

"It was use of very poor judgment," Cortines said. "There are hundreds and thousands of outstanding African-Americans in this city and in this nation, and I want our young people to have the best models to look up to, not ones that have questions around them."