East Texas librarian suspended over controversial cutouts
LONGVIEW, Texas - An East Texas school librarian has been suspended after posting life-size cutouts of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and adding modified campaign comments that some patrons found offensive.
Trustees of the Longview Independent School District on Monday night suspended the Longview High School librarian for two days without pay.
The Longview News-Journal reports the employee recently displayed the cutouts of the presidential candidates at the library entrance.
A remark on a sign for Republican Trump said: "Sign in or you will be deported."
The comment displayed for Democrat Clinton was: "This is the only door to use. Only deplorables use the other door."
The district issued an apology last Thursday. Longview immigration attorney Jose Sanchez called the cutouts "offensive and definitely not appropriate."
A Hispanic woman whose nephew attends the school expressed her dismay to the Longview News-Journal.
"My nephew was upset about it, and there were several other students who were upset about it," she said. "Some students felt like they don’t belong here — like a certain race of people do not belong here."
The paper reports that the school's population is one-third Hispanic. The school is a 6A, which means it has more than 2,100 students.
Longview is 120 miles east of Dallas.