Florida teacher’s license could be revoked after she supported Black Lives Matter and the changing of school’s name

Amy Donofrio was a beloved and highly regarded high school teacher in Jacksonville, Florida, where for years she sought to empower students and advocate for racial justice.

Amy Donofrio was a beloved and highly regarded high school teacher in Jacksonville, Florida, where for years she sought to empower students and advocate for racial justice. Outside the room where she taught English to mostly Black students at the former Robert E. Lee High School she had placed a sign that read, “Hate Has No Home Here,” according to an April order by an administrative law judge who recommended Donofrio receive a written reprimand after state officials accused the teacher of bringing her personal views into the classroom. “Ms. Donofrio was a pillar for us,” former student Diamond Wallace, 24, told CNN this week. “She acted as a rock for us and she was more like a mom, like a second mom to all of us students.” At the start of the 2020 school year, in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of police in Minneapolis, Donofrio, who is White, put up a large “Black Lives Matter” banner outside her classroom. She had displayed a BLM sign and t-shirt in her classroom as early as 2018, according to findings in the administrative judge’s recommendation. Administrators asked her to remove it, and expressed concern the display might violate school district policy. Donofrio refused. She said she believed the policy did not apply to the banner. On March 23, 2021, a school administrator removed the banner – about five months after she was first asked to bring it down. A day later Donofrio was reassigned to a work at a district warehouse. School officials had also voiced concerns that Donofrio displayed face masks in her classroom that read, “Robert E. Lee was a gang member” – which they considered to be an expression of her personal view. At the time the school district was in the process of renaming six schools named for Confederate generals. Donofrio denied the masks – which were common during the pandemic – were on display. She said the logo “I am not a gang member” was a phrase students use as part of their advocacy of racial justice, according to the administrative judge’s findings.