Leonard Witt: How did Live Free or Die state pass law that encourages turning in teachers?

To The Daily Sun,

The New York Times and Washington Post recently ran stories about Russian students turning in teachers who say anything negative about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Here, Frank Edelblut, New Hampshire education commissioner, encourages students to identify and report teachers who disagree with the GOP rules on how to talk about race. Rules that caused Gov. Chris Sununu’s own diversity council members to resign, citing the chilling effect the law would have on teachers’ freedom of speech.

The Times reports a Russian teacher told her eighth grade students, “Ukraine is a separate country, a separate one.”

“No longer,” one of the girls shot back. A few days later the police approached the teacher with a student-made recording. Then, according to the Times, a judge fined the teacher $400 for “publicly discrediting” Russia’s armed forces. The school fired her for “amoral behavior.”

Here in New Hampshire if a teacher says the predominately white society is racist, she too could easily get a visit from authorities holding a student recording. The school district can be sued and the teacher fired. The NH Department of Education webpage describes in great detail how to make a turn-in-your-teacher report.

How did it happen that the GOP from Gov. Sununu down allowed the Live Free or Die state to pass a law that encourages youth to turn in their teachers? How could my district’s own state Rep. Glenn Cordelli have sponsored the law while Wolfeboro’s Sen. Jeb Bradley ensured it got passed?

Any freedom-loving American must demand this nonsense stop in Russia and here in New Hampshire. We must call out Sununu, Cordelli, Bradley and Edelblut before they come after each of us who “publicly discredit” their dangerous, anti-free speech laws.

Leonard Witt

Sandwich