Florida Attorney General calls for firing of GHS history teacher for “Most likely to become a dictator” superlative
BY JENNIFER CABRERA
Updated at 4 p.m. with new information that the teacher has been placed on administrative leave.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has sent a letter to the School Board of Alachua County, asking for an investigation into an incident described by Crystal Marull at yesterday’s State Board of Education meeting and calling for the termination of a teacher if the investigation finds that the allegations are true.
During public comment on a recommendation from Commissioner of Education Stasi Kamoutsas to require training for school board members on the First Amendment and monitor the district for a year, Marull said, “My older son’s history teacher let students label him a ‘Naziphile,’ simply for his interest in history and his participation in ROTC. She later nominated my son as the ‘Most Likely to Become a Dictator’ and had his classmates vote on it and tried to force him to the front of the class to receive the certificate, which he rightly refused, all because of his conservative values and our perspectives.” The incident occurred in May 2023 in a history class at Gainesville High School.
In his letter, Uthmeier wrote, “If these facts bear out — and we have no reason to doubt Dr. Marull’s veracity — then this teacher should be immediately terminated, and never allowed to teach again in Florida.”
Uthmeier wrote, “Florida law prohibits bullying and harassment… This teacher violated Florida law, the School Board’s policy, and no less than six ethical principles. Her teacher’s certificate must be revoked… Despite this teacher’s nasty immaturity, we commend this young man for his strength in the face of rank political discrimination. Remove this teacher from the classroom. Parents and students in Alachua deserve better.”
Marull sent Alachua Chronicle her correspondence with the teacher, including this response from the teacher: “I do apologize that [your son] was offended by the Class Superlative. Class Superlatives are an activity I have been doing with all my classes for the last four years. I give students the option to change or add superlatives to the list from previous years and then the class nominates students and votes on the winner. I was not aware that [your son] was upset that he was nominated for that superlative a few weeks ago. To my knowledge, he did not ask to be removed when he was nominated or when the class voted. When I passed them out today, I reiterated that they were just for fun. These were not meant to be offensive. I do apologize.”
In a statement today, Marull said, “This is just one incident emblematic of the litany of abuses and offenses that conservative families face in this district. Not only was it wholly inappropriate, the apology was hollow, and although I reported this to a school board member at the time, the board failed to follow up with any consequences.”
According to Alachua County Public Schools Public Information Officer Jackie Johnson, the teacher has been placed on administrative leave while the investigation is underway.
Best news I’ve heard in a while
But, but, we want equity and fairness and allow no bullying…
More 🦶🏻in💩for the District.
They always say “if anyone was offended” blah blah blah because they lack common decency. The same lefties who honored Castro and Mao. 💩🤡👺👹👿
Sadly, that’s not an apology, it’s an excuse.
Happened two years ago why is it just coming out now?
because she mentioned it yesterday as part of a pattern she wanted them to see
I brought it to the attention of a school board member at the time, but nobody listened, and it’s coming up now because I talked about it at BOE yesterday, as stated in the article.
Ah, so you waited two years to continue to try to find someone who would listen. What about the other SB members? Did you bring it up at a meeting? Got it!
If you were so offended and your child so negatively affected why didn’t you bring it to others attention when the first person didn’t do anything? That’s what doesn’t make sense. All of the sudden it’s a big issue now.
My two children both went through Alachua County schools and if either had an issue that was ignored I would have been screaming it from the rooftops until I got some answers. As a parent we are supposed to fight for our children so either you dropped the ball as a parent then or you’re jumping on the bandwagon now for your 15 minutes.
Your decision to come forward at this point is suspect and I get the feeling we aren’t getting the full story.
Do you know how many black kids go through this ……I was told by my principal at Howard bishop Mr Cake I would not amount to anything in life and would do life in jail
Glad you proved him wrong.
These type of teachers used to get a few squirts of Visine dropped in their water bottles. Watching them grab ass and run to restroom made their ratchet attitude acceptable in the short term
People can’t even take a joke anymore. Ridiculous. I was nominated both “Most Likely to Succeed” and “Most Likely to Become a Serial Killer,” and won both unanimously–the same year Danny Rolling was sentenced to death for the student murders here. I found it hilarious. I and the rest of the class were disappointed only because I was too busy succeeding at teaching a judo class to be at the ceremony when they called my name. For all the tough talk, the skin on folk these days is paper thin. I guess only apolitical folk like myself don’t upset so easily.
Did you succeed or become a serial killer? Or neither? Or both?
It depends on who you ask. I refer to Emily Dickinson’s “Much Madness is Divinest Sense”.
Yeah being called a “naziphile” is just a joke … “everyone who disagrees with me is a nazi” is probably your moto.
Hundred, your comment is both ad hominem and a strawman, both fallacious logic, and as such unworthy of any response other than this one.
So it’s cool if I call you a naziphile, Or how about I can call you a pedo too … I mean it’s just a joke … right?? When a classmate does it it’s one thing … when a teacher sees it, and then proceeds to enable the bullying it’s game over. You sir are not “apolitical” if you think that it’s totally cool for a kid who just happens to have some right leaning beliefs to be bullied and made fun of by his teacher because of those beliefs.
Hundred, I don’t care what you call me. Have at it. I know who I am and Whose I am. Name-callers make themselves look foolish, and the comments section of this site is chock full of them. But you might want to step it up, because Peabody currently has you beat. I’ll let the two of you battle it out for Most Likely to Remain a Twelve-Year-Old. Unless you’d both prefer to grow up. I’d prefer that, for you and for the community at large. Echo chambers sound great, until you realize all the applause you’re receiving is from your own hands. 🙂
Coming from South Florida, I always noticed that the “local” male teens here seemed de-balled and sissified as a group. Where I’m from, I used to cut a few of the neighbors’ lawns to make money when I was in middle school, and I had other jobs. Most of the “boys” here are probably afraid to operate a lawnmower. On my own street, I see aging mothers mowing lawns while their teenage and older sons never do anything physical. I’ve never heard of any local boys/teens cutting lawns to make money here; it just doesn’t happen. They are more like little girls.
Where I’m from, someone might have gotten their teeth knocked out if they suggested that someone deserved an award for being a future serial killer, for example. Especially after reading your longtime posts, I think you must have been a sissy boy, raised in feminized Gainesville. That’s not normal. You are a product of a screwed up system where masculinity is systematically squeezed out of boys and deranged, masculinized women are exalted. That’s why you don’t see a big problem with this.
Oh, wow, Peabody. I literally laughed out loud. You just made my night. My dad was in the SEAL program. I lived in a shack at the back of 78 acres of woods on a lake full of alligators without electricity until age 7 (remained in that place until 13). I shot my first guns (.22 and .45 handguns, to feel the difference) at age 9. I went windsurfing on an Olympic size sailboard on said lake, on the surf driven by an incoming hurricane at age 11, and got stuck on the far side of the lake after a gust tossed me over the sail and the boom hit me in the back of the head, and was told by dad, “Swim, boy!” (and boy did I). And THEN I started my own lawn business to mow the Earl Scheib paint and body shop that my dad managed at the time, which was on N. Main next to The Clock restaurant that I also contracted to mow at age 12. Life settled down when we moved when I was 13, and I spent high school taking college classes to graduate with a 4.3 weighted GPA and graduate with a full scholarship to UF after turning down recruiters encouraging me to apply to both West Point and Annapolis. And those are just some highlights.
Your story is hilarious, but the truth is even stranger than your fiction. 🙂 But I don’t hide behind pseudonyms, so go check my facts. Still chuckling.
My weighted high school GPA was over 4.5 and I supposedly had the only perfect (60/60) ASVAB score that the recruiter had ever seen. My mom had to tell them that I wasn’t interested in the nuclear sub program and to stop bothering us. Sorry about your head injury and having to grow up in the land of the weird masculinized haughty freak women. It’s not normal in terms of Florida. That’s why they all come here to live, because they know what freaks they really are.
Wonderful, Peabody. The point is, you were wrong. Since you are so bright, you surely understand that assumption is the mother of all f*ckups.
Peace.
“Uthmeier wrote, “If these facts bear out — and we have no reason to doubt Dr. Marull’s veracity —…”
and then goes on to call for the teacher’s termination later in the same letter.
How about checking the facts – was this a humorous exercise done for fun, and in good faith asa the teacher says, or bullying a student for his views. Fire her if the latter. If the former, the AD should apologize for his condemnation before he checked the facts. Given his part in other embarassments to the state, like the $10 million to Hope Florida, and now attempts to cowtow to the president’s paniced attempt to redistrict in non-census years – this is the US Constitution – he is not to be trusted himself.
Yes but it only when you ok pick fun at a heterosexual white culture. Anybody is called racism, gay bashing, etc. The problem with teachers and their social exercises is that they are one sided. The comments Michael Grubbs is speaking of was at least two decades ago when things were a lot clearer and people could laugh when they were the butt of a joke.
i was in that class and no one bullied him, he acted like a dictator kids are kids let the teacher live everyone got a superlative hes not special she does “most likely to become a dictator”every year. Ms. Watts is without a doubt one of the BEST teachers ive ever had.
You’re a rare creature – presumably a teenager or maybe 20 seeing as how the incident happened in 2023. Don’t hear of many your age being very active in conservative media.
Maybe you knew my neighbor’s son Jackson.
You grew up in a land where acting like a normal masculine boy was defined as a “dictator.” Now you are here simping for a deranged hysterical woman.
If a student did this to a teacher in class, what would happen to child? Expelled? Punished? Jailed?. Are not Teachers we entrust our children to held at a higher standard then a Child?
from what I here, there is no discipline for the kids in ACPS. They don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.
I bet Jeremy Clepper is upset that someone took his superlative!
Let the clown show continue, what school board member ignored the complaint, why wasn’t principal involved.
fire her. A student should not have to be bullied by another student, much less a teacher. I see no ‘superlative’ here.