Obama Must Keep Kevin Jennings and Fight Back Against the Rightwing Bullies
The rightwing is after another progressive Obama appointee, and it’s past time for Obama to stand his ground.
The appointee in question is Kevin Jennings, who is the Assistant Deputy Secretary of Education for the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools.
Jennings, whom I’ve met and greatly admire, was the founder of GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network.
For years, he and his organization worked to make our schools safe from homophobic bigotry, which can devastate kids.
He knows the schools inside and out.
He has extraordinary experience with administrators.
In short, he’s perfect for the job.
But they don’t like him because he’s an advocate for gay rights.
So the reactionaries on Fox News and at the Washington Times have been waging a campaign against him.
They haven’t been able to find anything on him except that he, as a teacher, once advised a 15-year-old student in a relationship with an older man to use a condom, which in itself wasn’t bad advice.
This week, 53 Republican House members signed a letter demanding his ouster.
If the White House makes Jennings walk the plank like it did to Van Jones, that won’t satisfy the bullies from the right. They’ll just go after the next progressive they can find.
Obama must defend and keep Kevin Jennings.
You beat a bully by fighting back.
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Comments
Chihare
(sorry it took so long)
I see nothing that disqualifies Mr. Jennings from his job. As I noted before the boy was of legal age and did not have sex with the man so there was no crime and no one he could report the boys
thoughts to. More important when is thinking of a crime a crime in America?
If the boy had been underage and had sex with an older man. There were many reasons why the correct action would have been not to go to the police. Including the fact that it is unlikely the boy would have filed charges. So in the end the only one who would have been penalized would have been the boy when kids at school at work in his PE class found out he was gay.