For Brotherhood Week: A Tree that must not grow in Brooklyn, 1950

February 18, 1950. The tree of bigotry is topped by the figure of May Quinn, a Brooklyn teacher who was accused of spreading the poison of anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in her classroom. In 1942, Ms. Quinn used a vicious anti-Semitic leaflet as the basis for a discussion in her civics class. Teachers at her school also claimed that she had said all Communists were Jews and that Italians were "greasy foreigners." Unlike the haste with which the Board of Education was later to act against teachers with exemplary records accused of being "Communists," it took three years of concerted pressure by teachers, parents and civic organizations before charges were preferred against Ms. Quinn. Among her supporters was Father Edward Lodge Curran, eastern representative of Father Charles E. Coughlin's notoriously anti-Semitic publication, Social Justice. The Board acquitted her of most of the charges, found her guilty only of neglect of duty and poor judgment and fined her two weeks' pay. In 1949, when Ms. Quinn made racist statements during a current events lesson, Superintendent of Schools William Jansen, who presided over the witch-hunt that was later to strip the schools of its finest teachers, reported that he had informed Ms. Quinn of his "keen dissatisfaction" and "contemplated no further action."