Terry Hill Is Just Plain Wrong
By Steve Hunley
With so many new people moving into Knox County, there are probably some readers who don’t remember Dr. James McIntyre, who was superintendent of the school system for several years. McIntyre was a former bureaucrat working for the Boston public school system when he was brought here. McIntyre’s chief attribute, as far as I could tell, was his ability to speak in the popular bureaucratic vernacular, referring to “stakeholders” and the like, which seemed to impress the powers that be at the time. McIntyre was also good at scouring the internet to see what other school systems were doing and proposed it here.
McIntyre had the all-out support of the Knoxville Chamber when it was a potent political entity, the Knoxville News Sentinel, and the most widely watched local TV station at the time, WBIR. That trifecta held together to support McIntyre in anything and everything he wanted to do.
It went to McIntyre’s head and his superintendency quickly became imperial in nature and act. When then-Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett proposed to give county employees a raise, McIntyre appeared in his office to demand to know why Burchett had not consulted him.
McIntyre dominated the Knox County Board of Education, which is technically his employer. Only one board member ever dared to oppose McIntyre or question him: the late Mike McMillan.
When Knox County Commissioner Terry Hill appeared before the board of education last week, she recommended the revival of one of McIntyre’s cherished goals. That goal being that once the board (completely dominated by McIntyre) had taken a position on a matter, then every member had to publicly support it and could not criticize it. Clearly, it was a violation of the cherished right to free speech as well as a blatant attempt at enforcing censorship and eliminating the voices of the minority. It was equally clear it was patently unconstitutional.
That, in essence, is what Commissioner Terry Hill was proposing once again when she appeared before the board. Hill’s target was BOE Chair Betsy Henderson, who had gone to Nashville to speak up on behalf of Governor Lee’s voucher bill. The Left and teachers’ unions oppose vouchers to the last ditch. Unfortunately, the Left in this country has become opponents of free speech and ferociously advocated censorship for those who dare question or challenge their narrative. Any dissent or questioning of their leftist orthodoxy is to be stifled and condemned at once. Anyone who has the temerity to voice such beliefs or ask such questions has to be cancelled or driven out.
Betsy Henderson has the perfect right to say anything she wishes, here, or in Nashville or Timbuktu, about any topic under the sun. Henderson was as clear as could be that she was speaking as an individual and mother and not in her capacity as the chair of the Knox County Board of Education. In fact, Henderson was so clear that almost every imbecile could understand her, but not all imbeciles.
The daily newspaper does not support free speech unless it is the narrative pushed by the Left.The News Sentinel backed McIntyre’s attempt to choke off free speech and any dissent from his policies. The attempt to bury views with which we do not agree is a true and genuine threat to our democracy and is un-American. Terry Hill never represented the people of the Sixth District on the school board as much as she represented the school system and the teachers’ unions. Apparently, she still does. The notion that Hill, a member of the Knox County Commission, and especially one claiming to be a Republican, who is opposed to free speech and insisting that all the members adhere to and support policies adopted by a body belong on a politburo, not a freely elected legislative body.
Does anyone imagine for a moment that the Democrats in the U.S. House or Senate should remain silent once the majority has spoken and support whatever action might have passed by a single vote? Of course not.
Hill, who currently serves on the Knox County Commission, ran as a Republican in a Republican primary and the first thing she did was to vote to elect a Democrat to chair the county commission when the GOP held a big majority. It would be like Congressman Tim Burchett voting for Nancy Pelosi to be speaker of the House or Senators Bill Hagerty and Marsha Blackburn voting to make Chuck Schumer the majority leader. Hill seems to claim to be a Republican during election years and not so much otherwise.
Yet here is Terry Hill, a member of one legislative body, appearing before another to complain about Betsy Henderson speaking before still another legislative body and trying to clothe herself and her complaint as an ethical matter. What Hill proposes as an ethical improvement is as unethical as it is unconstitutional and un-American.
Hill was granted two additional minutes to speak simply because she was a former member of the board of education and quite possibly because she is a sitting commissioner. The sheer hypocrisy involved boggles the mind. Would any utterance of Terry Hill merit the slightest attention by the daily newspaper if it did not hate the idea of vouchers, school choice and parental rights? Probably not.
As to reading the voice of one’s constituents, Betsy Henderson got it right, although Terry Hill says otherwise. The fact is that Donald Trump supports school vouchers and carried the Sixth District; so did Governor Bill Lee. The legislators representing the precincts comprising the sixth commission and school board districts won supporting vouchers and so did Betsy Henderson. Terry Hill is the only supposed District 6 representative who does not.
There is nothing unethical about anything Betsy Henderson has said or done and it is an outrage that any rational human being would try to stifle freedom of speech or enforce censorship. There is no legislative body in the world that demands as a matter of ethics, that the minority remain silent and publicly support the views of the majority, except in a totalitarian government. What Totalitarian Terry is proposing is un-American and unethical and deserves the scorn and condemnation of all thinking people. Terry Hill does have the right to say what she wishes, but what she is saying is just plain wrong.
