William Latson defended Holocaust deniers in an email to a parent who was inquiring about his Florida school’s World War II curriculum.
A Florida principal who told a parent that he couldn’t say that the Holocaust happened has been fired, four months after his comments drew national outcry.
William Latson of Boca Raton’s Spanish River Community High School was fired by county school board members on Wednesday after they voted 5-2 to have him removed, The Palm Beach Post reported.
Latson’s termination was on the grounds of “ethical misconduct” and “failure to carry out job responsibilities.”
Though it was his emailed comments to a parent back in 2018 that launched public furor after they were published by The Palm Beach Post in July, it was reportedly his failure to respond to district officials’ messages in the days after the outcry that led to his firing.
In his email to the parent who was inquiring about the school’s Holocaust curriculum, Latson said the school’s one-day lesson to 10th graders is not mandatory because some parents “don’t want their children to participate.”
“The Holocaust is a factual, historical event,” the mother, who asked not to be named by the Post, responded to him. “It is not a right or a belief.”
Read the article by Nina Golgowski in the Huffington Post.