{"id":255508,"date":"2025-09-26T06:41:16","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T06:41:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/255508\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T06:41:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T06:41:16","slug":"douglas-anderson-teacher-reassigned-after-facebook-post-criticizing-a-city-councilman-action-news-jax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/255508\/","title":{"rendered":"Douglas Anderson teacher reassigned after Facebook post criticizing a city councilman \u2013 Action News Jax"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Action News Jax has confirmed that longtime educator and arts advocate Hope McMath has been temporarily reassigned by Duval County Public Schools following a controversial social media post criticizing Jacksonville City Councilman Rory Diamond.<\/p>\n

McMath, who teaches at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, made a Facebook post on September 10 amid heated debate over Diamond\u2019s proposed budget amendments, which aimed to restrict local funding connected to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), abortion, and immigration programs. Those measures ultimately failed after a 13-hour City Council meeting <\/a>on September 23.<\/p>\n

>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Post by Hope McMath A social media post by teacher Hope McMath criticizing a Jacksonville city councilman prompts an investigation. <\/p>\n

In her post, McMath wrote:<\/p>\n

\u201cRacist dog whistles abound on Jacksonville\u2019s City Council. It was on full display last night (September 9) as the grand wizard who calls himself Rory Diamond attempted to attack every group of people \u2014 his constituents \u2014 that do not look like him. His MAGA maneuvers are gross and dangerous. Gratitude for the Council people who stood up against this foolishness and walked out\u2026 Jim Crow 2.0 in Jax ain\u2019t no lie.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGrand wizard\u201d is a term historically linked to the Ku Klux Klan. <\/p>\n

A Duval County Public Schools spokesperson confirmed McMath\u2019s reassignment in a statement to Action News Jax\u2019s Ben Becker:<\/p>\n

\u201cI can confirm that the employee has been temporarily reassigned while the district conducts an investigation. Because the investigation is active and ongoing, we are unable to provide additional information.\u201d<\/p>\n

[DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n

McMath, a former executive director of the Cummer Museum and current director of Yellow House<\/a>, is known for her work at the intersection of art and social justice. She also served as the Chair of the Arts, Culture, and Entertainment Committee on Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan\u2019s transition team.<\/p>\n

Councilman Rory Diamond issued a statement in response:<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t particularly like engaging in cancel culture. However, if Duval Schools saw fit to remove this person from the classroom, in my opinion, our students would be far better off for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Action News Jax reached out to McMath for comment, but has not received a response. The Mayor\u2019s Office also declined to comment on the matter.<\/p>\n

Her reassignment follows a number of teachers statewide being reprimanded for social media posts responding to the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, including a Clay County educator<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n

Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Action News Jax has confirmed that longtime educator and arts advocate Hope McMath has been…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":255509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[7320,5229,7323,9961,134673,125412,3188,723,7324,134672,7310,7327,7325,7326,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,7322,7321],"class_list":{"0":"post-255508","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action-news-jax","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-cbs47","11":"tag-city-of-jacksonville","12":"tag-controversial-social-media-posts-by-teachers","13":"tag-duval-schools","14":"tag-fl","15":"tag-florida","16":"tag-fox30","17":"tag-hope-mcmath","18":"tag-jacksonville","19":"tag-jacksonville-fl","20":"tag-northeast-florida","21":"tag-southeast-georgia","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-united-states-of-america","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-usa","28":"tag-wfox","29":"tag-wjax"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115269237760420390","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}