Case dismissed against May River teacher who showed explicit rap video in class
South Carolina’s State Board of Education has dismissed its case against May River High School English teacher Meghan Clarke, who came under fire in 2018 for showing an explicit rap video in class to illustrate opposing viewpoints on race in America.
Clarke, then in her first year teaching the freshmen advanced composition class, was placed on paid administrative leave for two days in September 2018 while administrators “reviewed” her decision to show the music video for the rap “I’m Not Racist” in class.
The district did not initiate the state investigation and Clarke still works as an English teacher at the school, district spokesman Jim Foster said Thursday.
Department of Education spokesman Ryan Brown said the incident was likely brought the state’s attention by a DOE employee or investigator, by one of the several newsletters that round up education articles across the state.
The video, which shows a white man in a Make America Great Again hat and a black man lip syncing to rapper Joyce Lucas’ lyrics for nearly seven minutes, contains about 50 expletives, including 17 N-words.
“The hearing officer found that Ms. Clarke exhibited a lapse in judgment but that the matter was appropriately handled at the District level,” the state Department of Education noted in its order of dismissal.
“The hearing officer emphasized the video was chosen as part of a lesson on race; however, the hearing officer noted there were many more appropriate materials Ms. Clarke could have chosen to introduce the topic of race to her students.”
According to previous reporting by The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette, five parents emailed the school’s principal to express their concerns about the appropriateness of the video, including one parent who went so far as to pull his daughters out of Clarke’s class.
That parent, Thomas Schoenstra, told the Packet and the Gazette at the time that he ultimately decided to move his daughters to a different English class after Clarke sent him a list of additional videos she planned to show throughout the semester, one of which was about birth control.
On the other hand, five parents also emailed the school in support of Clarke, Foster said at the time.
The principal and administrators investigated the incident while Clarke was on paid leave and found that the video was not suited for the classroom, Foster said.
“The basic idea behind the video was an interesting one — to have students examine how entire groups of people can be stereotyped — but the profanity was obviously not appropriate for a classroom,” he said at the time.
After receiving criticism for showing the video in class, Clarke apologized to the principal, her students and her students’ parents, according to Foster.
“In the end, this is an outstanding young teacher who made a mistake in judgment,” Foster said.
In the email sent to parents the day after the video was shown, Clarke apologized if any parents took offense to the video and explained to parents she was using short videos as a way to talk about and “address the realities we face in society.”
“As a teacher, it would be an injustice to my students if I neglected very important issues that our youth will face in society,” Clarke wrote in the email.
Clarke told parents in the email that the class had previously discussed that, when not directed at someone, the use of profanity “does not always have to be deemed inappropriate when it is used to express emotion.”
But in a statement written to the Packet and the Gazette at the time, Clarke said, “Although profanity is infused in much of the entertainment consumed by today’s teens, that doesn’t make it acceptable for classroom viewing.”
“Our Advanced Composition class will continue to focus on various realities that students will face in their lives, and racial stereotyping is one of those realities. But I will take to heart what my parents are saying and be sensitive to their concerns in my lesson planning,” she continued.