Seattle teacher tells student it’s ‘offensive’ to identify as straight

The unidentified pupil’s mom filed a formal complaint about Ian Golash, the chair of the social studies department at Chief Sealth International High School.

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After her son labeled himself as “straight,” Golash allegedly told the boy the term is “offensive,” she claimed in an email to the teacher and Principal Ray Garcia-Morales sent in September but obtained this week by KTTH.

“It is completely inappropriate to dictate what terms a student can and cannot use to identify themselves with,” she wrote.

Golash denied singling out her son, but confirmed saying he prefers not to use the term “straight” because “it implies that to not be straight is to be ‘crooked,’ which could have a negative connotation.”

The mother further claims Golash told her tenth-grade son he was “a product of the patriarchy” during a discussion about Florida “banning ethnic studies” — likely in reference to the state blocking an Advanced Placement course on African American studies.

She said her son was absent when the class watched a video about the topic, and told the teacher he did not know why the state legislature forwarded the ban.

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“You missed an opportunity here to teach your student about current events and instead shamed him for being a male.

“To assume that he’s being raised in a patriarchal household is a very mistaken one,” she added.

In response, Golash insisted that the comment was not “directed at one student” but connected to discussions the class had in prior days and “the behavior of several boys in the class.”

“I certainly wasn’t making any implications about your household,” he said. “I was referring to a system of power that we all live in.”

The same mother previously accused the ethnic studies world history teacher in an earlier complaint of giving her son a failing grade on a quiz when he labeled two statements “true” — The first that “All men have penises” and the second that “Only women can get pregnant.”

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A course description states that students would be “investigating… the global economy, society, and culture.”

“Mr. Golash has introduced many controversial topics into the classroom and instead of inviting open, constructive and truthful conversations, he provides biased resources that only aid in pushing his own ideological agendas,” the boy’s mother told “The Jason Rantz Show.”

“Mr. Golash instructs his students what to think and not how to think,” the unidentified mother continued. “This in no way provides identity-safe classrooms that allow students to feel visible and valued.”

She claims her son had to “self-censor” due to Golash’s teaching methods, which she described as “intolerant.”

The mother has since pulled her son from Golash’s class, she said.

The Post has reached out to Chief Sealth International High School Principal Garcia-Morales for comment.

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But the school district is already investigating two separate complaints against the teacher, according to KTTH — one for the failed quiz and another for an incident in which he allegedly taught an antisemitic curriculum.

(*) www.WhitePrideHomeSchool.com