The recent resignation by Whitewater High School teacher Joshua Hitson following allegations about him on the Atlanta Antifascists website has drawn a response from former Whitewater Principal Roy Rabold. That response was leveled at what Rabold believes was the real intention behind the group’s claims — social terrorism.
Above, Roy Rabold, earlier this year before he retired as Whitewater High School principal. Photo/Submitted.
Having supervised Hitson at Whitewater, and despite the claims of Atlanta Antifascists web postings, Rabold in a letter to the editor provided a vastly different take on Hitson and on the Atlanta Antifascists organization and its accusations toward Hitson.
Stripping away some of the well-known trappings of social media, Rabold said, “(Hitson) has been tried and convicted in the social media. This is social terrorism to destroy a man’s career and life.”
Rabold said his letter was necessary because he felt that the public, including the people in the Whitewater school district, got only one side of the story.
“He didn’t spread that kind of information, and wouldn’t have been able to on my watch,” Rabold said, adding that he wrote the letter to support Hitson in the face of the one-sided accusations where the accusers hide behind their masks and anonymous emails and phone numbers that can’t be traced. “And I wanted to let parents know (the accusations) weren’t real.”
Rabold believes Hitson resigned “to save Whitewater High School and the community from any further embarrassment. He is that type of person. Unfortunately, the students suffer as they will not have the opportunity to learn under Mr. Hitson.”
A long-time education administrator in schools across Fayette County, including at Whitewater where he retired as principal at the end of May, Rabold reiterated his position that the actions of the Atlanta Antifascists group and its allegations against Hitson amounts to social terrorism, and that the community deserves to hear another perspective on the issue. Rabold said, he too, was threatened.
“I began receiving emails and phone calls about Mr. Hitson in March of this year after the inauguration of President Trump,” Rabold said. “The emails were either sent anonymously or they were sent so that I could not return a comment and not determine their origin. Most of the emails used the word, ‘allegedly.’ Yes, I received phone calls. Some of the calls were from New York and as far as Maine. I did not have one pleasant phone call and many times the caller used profanity and even threatened me. Of course, on those phone calls, there was no way to track down the caller, and they used blocked numbers.”
Noting Hitson’s teaching career that began in 2011 at Creekside High School in South Fulton County, a school with an 85.3 percent African-American student body, Rabold questioned why someone with supposed neo-Nazi leanings would choose such a location to teach.
Hitson later moved to Whitewater in 2014.
“I hired Mr. Hitson at Whitewater High School in 2014, where he has worked ever since. In my three years working with Mr. Hitson, I never had a complaint about his teaching nor any problems with his relationship or rapport with students or parents,” Rabold explained. ”I find it interesting that after Mr. Hitson has taught for over six years now, the Antifa has decided what he allegedly stands for in his personal life. Where were they previously?”
