This is a tale of a bus and a guy named Bostic. Bostic’s first name is Jerry. He’s probably a pretty swell guy, I suppose. At least, by his own admission, he is.
He spent 44 years as an educator. And, Bostic said recently, he “really enjoyed” working with the kiddies.
The bus in this story is the figurative one that Bostic got tossed under. Details of the Bostic and the bus story go like this.
Bostic, until very recently, was principal of Brookside Elementary School in Gastonia, N.C. One of the students there was a 9-year-old fourth-grader named Emanyea Lockett.
Little Emanyea must have shown signs that he was on his way to becoming a heterosexual male, and there are elements in America today that would sure like to nip that trend in the bud. Emanyea told one of his fellow students that he thought a certain female teacher was “cute.”
Remember that as you read this story: Emanyea didn’t tell the teacher in question she was “cute.” He said nothing to the teacher at all. His remark was to another student.
A substitute teacher overheard the remark, and thought it was an offense worthy of being reported to Bostic. The principal thought the remark was offensive enough to suspend Emanyea.
For three days.
For sexual harassment.
This, readers, is a phenomenon rightly known as “hysteria.” We news media types have, over the past month or so, subjected the public to a plethora of stories about sexual harassment allegations against Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain.
Before that, we had a bunch of liberal types celebrating the 20th anniversary of Anita Hill’s sexual harassment allegations against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Hill was hailed as the woman who brought the subject of sexual harassment to the forefront, though some still believe she was nothing more than a lying schemer out to derail Thomas’ confirmation.
We don’t know if those matters were on Bostic’s mind or not when he made the decision to suspend a 9-year-old boy for “sexually harassing” a teacher the lad never said a word to, but Emanyea’s mother sure had something on HER mind. She went straight to the media with the story about her son’s suspension.
Bostic and the school system of Gaston County, N.C., took quite a bit of well-deserved heat after the story broke.
Reeves McGlohon, the county school superintendent, must have felt the temperature soaring and gave someone the figurative order, “Start the bus, and keep the engine running.”
McGlohon gave Bostic two choices: he could either resign, or be demoted to assistant principal. That’s the official story.
I suspect what was going on in McGlohon’s mind was something like this: “Sorry, Jer, but I’ve got to cover my derriere. Sorry about yours.”
Bostic chose to resign, and then went into full-blown, whining-victim mode.
“To me it’s really a sad final note to a career that I have found very satisfying and enjoy working with kids,” Bostic huffed, according to several news reports. “I really don’t believe I was treated fairly.”
In short, Bostic was saying that McGlohon threw him under the bus, gunned the engine, hit the accelerator and then backed the bus up three or four times.
Bostic isn’t the only one who feels that way. There are those who’ve rushed to his defense, claiming he got a raw deal.
I’m not doing handstands, back flips or cheers about Bostic being fired. But his canning doesn’t leave me prostrate with grief either.
Bostic, by aligning himself with that American element that’s tried to hijack our language and make sexual harassment anything they choose for it to mean, brought this on himself.
Too bad Bostic wasn’t able to dodge the bus.
Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
