Teacher Who Forced Boy to Wipe Off Ash Wednesday Cross Apologizes

Last week, we reported that a fourth-grade teacher in Utah had forced a student to wipe his Ash Wednesday cross off his forehead. Now, the teacher is speaking out to apologize and to attempt to explain the reasoning behind what she did.

Fox News reported that Moana Patterson, a teacher at Valley View Elementary in Bountiful, issued a brief apology on Monday for making 9-year-old William McLeod wipe the ash off his forehead, claiming that she thought the marking was “dirt.”

“A student came into my classroom with what appeared to be dirt on his forehead,” Patterson said. “I gave him a wet wipe to clean it off. I had no idea it was a religious symbol. When I learned it was a sacred symbol for Ash Wednesday, I immediately apologized to the boy and his family.”

William had previously said that he tried to explain that the marking was a Christian symbol, but Patterson refused to listen to him.

“I told her what it was and she said, ‘That’s not appropriate in this school, go wipe it off,’ and she pulled me to the corner and she gave me a disinfectant wipe and made me wipe it off,” William recalled.

“She told me two times to wipe it off in front of my friends in the corner and I wiped it off and she said, ‘More,’ until it was like gone,” he continued. “When I went in the office I was crying because I felt like I was in trouble.”

It’s both ridiculous and offensive that Patterson thought that the marking was “dirt.” Even if that is true, she should have listened to her student when he told her that it was a Christian symbol. Why would a child make something like that up?

Had Patterson forced a Muslim student to remove her hijab, her explanation and apology would mean nothing to the inevitable leftwing Lynch mob that would form with the sole goal of destroying her. There would be mass outrage from the mainstream media, and we would be hearing about the incident for weeks. Since a Christian boy was victimized in this incident, however, the media has completely ignored this story because they have no interest in portraying Christians as victims in any way.