A Florida high school principal defended Holocaust deniers, saying he could not say the event was “factual” or “historical.”
“I can’t say the Holocaust is a factual, historical event because I am not in a position to do so as a school district employee,” William Latson wrote in emails from 2018 published by the Palm Beach Post on Friday.
The comments came after a mother of a student inquired how the Holocaust was taught at the school.
Latson, who is the principal at Spanish River High School, said the school included education of the Holocaust in its curriculum but the lessons were “not forced upon individuals as we all have the same rights but not all the same belief.”
“The Holocaust is a factual, historical event,” the mother wrote back in an email. “It is not a right or a belief.”
Latson responded, “Not everyone believes the Holocaust happened.”
The emails started a yearlong effort by the mother to address what she said was a failure by the school to tell the complete truth of the Holocaust.
The mother said she did not believe Latson was a Holocaust denier but rather afraid of confronting parents who were.
“I regret that the verbiage that I used when responding to an email message from a parent, one year ago, did not accurately reflect my professional and personal commitment to educating all students about the atrocities of the Holocaust,” Latson said in an apology. “It is critical that, as a society, we hold dear the memory of the victims and hold fast to our commitment to counter anti-Semitism.”
The Palm Beach County school district said they are reassigning Latson to a district job because “his leadership has become a major distraction.”
