Free Speech: A Quaint Relic of the U.S.

By John Tiffany —

Former school principal Frank Borzellieri is a tragic victim of the bigotry that goes under the label of political correctness. In 1993, Borzellieri was elected to the school board of Queens, New York, and rapidly became famous for advocating tradition, patriotism and a Eurocentric curriculum.

It makes one ponder what our country has come to that what we once took for granted makes one famous today.

Over the years, he has questioned the sainthood of the skirt-chasing Michael “Martin Luther” King, Jr. and demanded to know why Christopher Columbus, who discovered America and is the reason we are all here today, is now portrayed in schoolbooks as a greedy rat.

For 11 years Borzellieri was voted back on the school board with ever-increasing majorities—until New York reorganized its system and eliminated local school boards.

He was also a columnist from 1997 to 2002 for the Queens Ledger chain of newspapers, where he wrote forthrightly about race, immigration and other issues, which made him one of their most popular writers.

He then went back to school, picking up two master’s degrees, and became an educator.

In 2005 he was hired to teach at a Roman Catholic high school. It was a natural career development, as he was a devout Catholic and had attended Catholic schools from kindergarten on up to his master’s degrees.

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS AS A WEAPON

In 2007, a jealous colleague tried to get him fired. She dug up his old columns and claimed they were “racist” and “white supremacist.” The church then made an official study of his writings and pronounced them fully compatible with the teachings of the church.

Borzellieri had been an exemplary teacher, and when the church approved his columns, he actually was promoted to dean of discipline at St. Barnabas High School. He moved ahead to become principal of Our Lady of Mount Carmel High.

In 2011, a different vindictive colleague tried the same trick. Only this one fed information about Borzellieri’s so-called racist past to an ultra-liberal reporter at New York’s Daily News. The journalist there wrote a dishonest hatchet job about his racial views.

Borzellieri, knowing the piece was in the works, contacted the church and was assured by his boss that his job was not in any danger whatsoever. Yet 24 hours after the yellow journalism article appeared in print, Borzellieri was fired, although there had been no public reaction.

Note that this was nine years after publication of his last newspaper column. Other than “political correctness,” there were no grounds for firing Borzellieri over writings the church knew all about and had said were not a problem.

“There were no complaints in Borzellieri’s work file regarding his performance as principal of Our Lady of Mount Carmel,” a spokesman for the archdiocese was quoted as saying. “Nor are there any complaints stemming from his previous job as a teacher at St. Barnabas High.”

The students loved him. Borzellieri never showed any bias or favoritism. He had more black and Hispanic pupils than he had white ones, and there had never been any complaints.

If there was ever a man who is not a racist, it is Borzellieri. What he is, is a racial realist. There is not an ounce of hatred in this man.

To this day, because he was fired for alleged racism, Borzellieri metaphorically wears a scarlet letter “R” and will probably never get another job as a principal or teacher. Because he is a “public figure” as a former principal, he has no legal recourse for his wrongful firing over an ancient detail of political correctness.

John Tiffany is copy editor for AMERICAN FREE PRESS and assistant editor of THE BARNES REVIEW. He has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Michigan and has done postgraduate studies in law, biology and computer science. He is devoted to the truth and lets the chips fall where they may.