The Tacoma Public Schools apologized for firing a gay teacher back in the 1970s during Tacoma's Pride Week. Tacoma School Board apologizes to teacher fired 42 years ago... | www.kirotv.com
The apology wasn't exactly accompanied with a check to go with it. It's amazing that this happened in a large urban area that is now considered generally liberal. The article states that, after this happened, he took up a career as a librarian.
That is incredible, after all this freaking time, they made an apology. This is a happy, yet bizarre ending.
I think the apology on its own seems incredibly insincere. I noticed the quote: “We cannot make up for the mistakes of an unfortunate past, but we can at least acknowledge them and let those affected know that regret doesn’t end when the old guard moves on.” No, but you can try a hell of a lot harder to apologise. This man lost his job, his income at the time, probably suffered immensely psychologically from the ordeal and legal costs in representing himself can't have been cheap. I'd hazard a guess he would have earned more today had he stayed in the teaching profession too - might have been promoted to a headteacher position. Write the guy a big cheque if you truly want to apologise and put things right. I hope someone sets up some form of crowdfunding/donation for this guy.
I have been thinking of this. One issue is that Tacoma was probably quite a bit different in the early 1970s than it is now. For that matter, there have been a lot of changes over the last 20-some years. I have heard stories about people who couldn't wait to get the hell out of Tacoma in 1990 when they went to college. Then, years later, been forced to come back for some reason, and found that Tacoma wasn't the Tacoma they remembered. Part of this might be personal evolution, but there is no denying that Tacoma has had some positive changes over the years.
I'm not sure if this is a publicity stunt or if they truly feel awful about what happened to the teacher.