A Texas teacher in El Paso was fired after telling high school students not to judge pedophiles for wanting to have sex with kindergarten-age children.
In a special meeting Sept. 6, the El Paso ISD school board voted unanimously to terminate the teacher, who taught English at Franklin High School.
She was terminated after a video of her defending pedophiles went viral.
“Stop calling them that. You’re not allowed to label people like that. Stop it, Diego,” the teacher can be heard saying on the video, while students are protesting with “What?” and “No.”
“We’re going to call them MAPs: Minor Attracted Persons. So don’t judge people just because they want to have sex with a 5-year-old.”
The video on the school’s Facebook page drew scores of comments from outraged and disgusted parents.
“This is pure evil. In the past, teachers would never dream of saying this,” Andrew Ethan Pilat wrote.
“Fire that insane liberal teacher literally defending pedos. School boards have been the enemy for decades and are indoctrinating our children,” wrote Gojo Satoru.
One woman commented she was glad she had pulled her children out of public schools, while another called for parents to stage a walkout until the teacher was removed.
However, one student in the English class told a local news outlet she believed Parker’s words were taken out of context.
“She was expressing how it was ridiculous how we [society] might not be able to call people pedophiles. That we will probably have to start calling them MAPs because it can be offensive to them. The class agreed,” Ryann Ruvalcaba, a junior at Franklin High School, told KFOXTV.
Last year, Allyn Walker, a transgender assistant professor at Old Dominion University, resigned in May after using the term “minor-attracted person” instead of the word pedophile in research, which led to an outcry on campus and social media.
“My scholarship aims to prevent child sexual abuse,” Walker said in a news release. “That research was mischaracterized by some in the media and online, partly on the basis of my trans identity.”
Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore recently hired Walker to work as a postdoctoral fellow at a center to prevent child sexual abuse.