Hilton Head teacher threatened over video supporting Black people’s right to riot
A Hilton Head Island Middle School teacher’s video stating Black Americans built this country and thus have the right to “burn the motherf----- to the ground” in protests has sparked debates across the state over freedom of speech and responsibilities of teachers. It also has resulted in threats against the teacher and calls for their firing.
Lane Cogdill, an eighth-grade history teacher at the school, posted a video to the social media platform TikTok on June 1 discussing the growing wave of protests and riots across the country following the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.
“Hey y’all, I have some thoughts about what’s going on in the world as a history teacher who cares about racial justice,” Cogdill said in the since-deleted video. “I keep hearing people say, I understand protesting, but I don’t understand rioting and looting, and let me just remind y’all that this country was literally built by Black people.”
“Black people’s bodies were literally the currency that our white founding fathers used to fund the revolution,” the teacher continues. “So as far as I’m concerned, as a white person and as a history teacher, if your ancestors built this country, you have the right to burn the motherf----- to the ground.”
About three weeks later, a parent posted a link to the video on Facebook and sent it to Pat Freda, Cogdill’s principal, and Alice Walton, Beaufort County School District’s human resources director.
Cogdill, who identifies as nonbinary and uses singular they/them pronouns, said they received a formal reprimand by the district on July 18 for use of profanity and encouragement of violence, which went in their personnel file.
According to Cogdill, the letter also included a further stipulation: “It said the district reserved the right to take further action if it became clear when school came back in the fall that the situation had impaired my ability to teach effectively.”
“I disagree with the district reprimanding me for that,” Cogdill said. “However, I was willing to just accept it and move on. I think that there’s an issue there of teachers having a right to free speech.”
While the video was posted publicly, Cogdill said they did not share their TikTok account with any students, and that they generally deny students’ requests to follow them on social media until after they have graduated from Hilton Head Island Middle School.
Asked whether the school district considered the matter closed, spokeswoman Candace Bruder said Tuesday she was “unable to comment as this is a personnel matter.”
Cogdill deleted the video from TikTok and sent Walton a rebuttal to the school district’s letter, calling their video statement an “emotionally expressed explanation” of the rights American citizens have “to alter or abolish their government in any way they see fit,” per the Declaration of Independence.
Cogdill added that Freda had supported their classroom lessons which referenced their activist work, asking them to present to the school’s social studies department about incorporating literacy in their lessons.
They asked that the rebuttal, which includes a transcript of their video and context to their statements, be included in their personnel file as well.
Cogdill said the district has not contacted them since. But in recent weeks, some parents and public officials have begun a campaign for further discipline — even termination — from the district.
‘Two issues’
Cogdill said the video wasn’t mentioned on social media again until they organized and participated in a July 31 “Virtual Until Safe” event with SC for Ed, an education advocacy group that supports online-only school reopenings until COVID cases decrease across South Carolina. During the livestreamed discussion, Cogdill said they saw a comment by a parent regarding the video.
That same parent wrote a since-deleted Facebook post a few days later that assigned pronouns to Cogdill that they do not use, and called for Cogdill to be “held accountable” for their “violent and racist language.”
Another individual also commented on the post: “Maybe the burning and destruction she wholeheartedly embraces could start at her school while she’s working and maybe burn her car up. I’m sure she would be OK with that.”
Cogdill said that prompted them to no longer “be the bigger person.”
“I have been the subject of a lot of derogatory, prejudicial language, a lot of disagreement throughout my activist career and throughout my teaching career,” they said. “There’s a difference to me between rude comments and direct threats.”
Cogdill filed a report with the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office, asking that police investigate the commenter’s threat.
According to the report and Sheriff’s Office spokesman Bob Bromage, the investigation is closed, and no arrests were made, as the police “determined the statement did not seem to be a direct threat” to Cogdill.
At least two Beaufort County politicians have weighed in on the matter.
In a Sunday email to school board members and the state Department of Education, Beaufort County Council member Mike Covert said Cogdill “has made terrorist threats against the school system, or at the very least, her school of employment, the Hilton Head Island Middle School.”
He asked for Cogdill to be fired or “at the very least” reassigned to a position that did not include contact with children.
Covert included screenshots of Cogdill’s Facebook posts, and disparaged their use of the gender-neutral honorific “Mx.” in place of a “Mr.” or “Mrs.”
“I dont care what someone wants to think their sex assignment is, the public school system is NOT the place to advertise it,” Covert wrote. “Do you not think this could be detrimental to a child?”
Cogdill said that Covert’s email — as well as a FitsNews article which initially referred to them with the wrong pronouns and the name they no longer use — solidified “how many people in this community can’t just be respectful of who a person is.”
“I can’t help but feel that there’s a connection between how angry these people are about my statement and how prejudicial they are about my identity as a transgender person,” Cogdill said.
The FitsNews article has since been updated with Cogdill’s preferred name and pronouns, in addition to a separate lengthy note explaining the decision and citing Cogdill’s Facebook post calling the article a “hateful, low-handed attack.”
Cogdill said they “have been out as nonbinary since day one” at Hilton Head Island Middle in October 2017. Cogdill said they explain their use of they/them pronouns and the “Mx.” to students, and that they correct students if they refer to their teacher with the wrong pronouns or title. Cogdill said they also give students “the benefit of the doubt” as they’re often the first transgender person their students have met.
“I know how to answer those questions, and specifically how to answer those questions in a way that’s appropriate for the age group that I teach,” they said. “It’s such a non-issue in my day-to-day life at the school.”
Bridgette Frazier, a Bluffton Town Council member who teaches at Hilton Head Island Middle School and previously served as Cogdill’s mentor teacher, posted a response to Covert’s email on Facebook asking why Covert hadn’t weighed in on other issues facing the district, such as a Lady’s Island Middle School principal’s comments on Black students’ test scores or the 300-plus district students who could not be contacted during spring school building closures.
Administrators at the district office and Hilton Head Middle “should be trusted and respected to handle employee related concerns with fidelity,” Frazier said. “They also should not have to be distracted away from focusing on issues that will aid our children, educators and staff during this pandemic.”
While Cogdill has retained a lawyer, they said Monday that they do not plan to sue the school district or any other party.
“People have asked me if I regret what I said, and I don’t,” Cogdill said. “Is that a statement I would ever say in the classroom? Absolutely not. But I didn’t make the statement in my classroom.”
This story was originally published August 13, 2020 at 4:45 AM.