Referring to the late Shawn McBreairty as a polarizing figure in Maine’s culture wars over education policy would be an understatement.
He was polarization personified, and that’s a good thing. Maine needs more men like Shawn.
He wasn’t always that way.
I remember him saying that as recently as five years ago, he would leave the room at hunting camp if the conversation veered into politics. He was utterly apolitical.
That was before June 1, 2020, when the MSAD 51 (Cumberland) school district sent a letter to parents alleging that America is a systemically racist nation ruled by white supremacists who perpetrate violence every day against black people.
Say what?
As the devoted father of twin girls in their junior year at Greely High School, Shawn was stunned at the radically anti-American tone and content of the letter from the district’s woke “equity committee.”
Get a load of this malignant neo-Marxist drivel:
We cannot move forward until we reconcile the intentional barriers white people have built to harm black people. Barriers that prevent black people from having access to rigorous education in safe and nurturing environments. Barriers that deny safe and affordable housing. Barriers that restrict healthy and affordable food. We recognize that black people experience violence every single day because of our white supremacist society….
We will work to assess our curriculum, educate our community within and outside of our school campus, dismantle the anti-blackness all of us have internalized by living in a society built on white supremacy, and provide tools to interrupt anti-black racism.
Shawn McBreairty wasn’t about to sit idly by while the faculty and staff pledged allegiance to Critical Race Theory.
If you’re unfamiliar with Shawn’s maiden voyage into the belly of the K-12 beast, check out this Breitbart report from three years ago:
Superintendent Denies Use of Critical Race Theory, Calls Vocal Parent ‘Vile’ (breitbart.com)
The more he dug into what was going on in MSAD 51 – and later at RSU 22 in Hampden – the more appalled he was. The racist curriculum is bad enough, but it pales in comparison to the pornographic reading material, and the policies that compel female students to share toilet and shower facilities with mentally ill teenage boys pretending to be girls.
Shawn was a whistle-blower whose tenacity was amazing to behold. He attended a Maine First Project activist training in Scarborough in November of 2020, and within a year he came on board as our Director of Special Projects.
One of his biggest scoops was exposing the rot at the top in the Maine Department of Education (MDOE) under commissioner Pender Makin. The Department front-loaded its website with woke teacher training material in tandem with Gov. Mills’ COVID lockdown in March of 2020.
In a video for kindergartners, the trans activist teacher tells the children that sometimes the doctor makes a mistake when the doc tells parents of a newborn baby whether it’s a boy or a girl.
The video continues with cartoon characters singing about “queer” and “pansexual” families.
Shawn unearthed this gem and posted it to Maine First Project’s social media page two weeks before the scandal landed on the front pages of Maine’s very Fake News media outlets. Under pressure, Gov. Millstone yanked the dangerous and demented video lesson.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that the MDOE website remains a dumpster-load of toxic waste material that serves no educational purpose.
Check out this pile of “sometimes-the-doctor-makes-a-mistake” compost:
I could go on and on itemizing Shawn McBreairty’s accomplishments as an advocate for educational freedom committed to shining a bright light into the darkest recesses of the K-12 swamp. He was the proverbial bull in the china shop at a time when very few parents were aware of the threat to their children.
The expression “desperate times call for desperate measures” comes to mind.
Shawn was a fearless warrior who fought fire with fire. And he was undeterred by the slings and arrows of the diversity fascists who dominate state government, academia, and the very Fake News media.
One thing I know for certain: Shawn didn’t have a selfish bone in his body. He was motivated by love for his wife Patti and their precious twin daughters. His love for Maine and America was evident to anyone who knew him.
I do not know what demons Shawn was wrestling with these past few months. I’m praying that God Almighty will grant Patti and her girls strength and the peace that passes understanding.
Rest in peace, brother.
“The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.” Psalm 34:18
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
2 Peter 3:9