Federally Funded Lesson Plan Asked Oakland Students to Compare Cop Killer to Martin Luther King
Maureen Faulkner, whose husband Officer Daniel Faulkner was gunned down in Philadelphia on Dec. 9, 1981, said the latest effort to glorify Abu-Jamal’s past using a lesson plan posted on the Oakland (Calif.) Unified School District’s website is akin to advocating violence to young students.
A lesson plan asking students to draw parallels between late civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal is an "absolute disgrace," the widow of the fallen Philadelphia officer told FoxNews.com.
Maureen Faulkner, whose husband Officer Daniel Faulkner was gunned down in Philadelphia on Dec. 9, 1981, said the latest effort to glorify Abu-Jamal’s past using a lesson plan posted on the Oakland (Calif.) Unified School District’s website is akin to advocating violence to young students.
"It’s a travesty," Faulkner told FoxNews.com by phone early Thursday. "You’re going to teach children about a man who murdered a police officer? That’s not a good lesson to be teaching children. He was a radical, a militant. My question is: Are our tax dollars paying for this?"
The lesson plan, which was authored by teacher Craig Gordon for 11th-graders within the 37,000-student district, suggests that students "critically examine a possible parallel" between King and "someone else many believe is currently targeted by the U.S. government, Mumia Abu-Jamal."
Troy Flint, director of public relations for the Oakland Unified School District, said the lesson plan is no longer part of the district's curriculum and was funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education.
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