Teacher banned for claiming Rosa Parks 'did not exist' and MLK was a 'fraud': report

A teacher who told students Rosa Parks "did not exist" and that American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was guilty of plagiarism has been banned, according to a report Monday.

British teacher Patrick Lawler, 62, was accused of making several offensive comments about the Black civil rights icons, including claims that King was a “fraud and had embezzled lots of money," The Independent reported.

A parent reportedly complained about the teacher's statements that he apparently made during a medieval history lesson.

"Some year nine pupils present in the lesson told a witness that he put up a picture of Martin Luther King towards the end of the lesson, and when asked about him, Mr Lawler told the class that he had 'illegally changed his name and fraudulently obtained his doctorate,'" according to The Independent.

Though the comments were made between 2015 and 2020, the United Kingdom's Teaching Regulation Agency ruled last month that he had brought the teaching profession into disrepute and he was banned from teaching.

King, a Baptist minister and civil rights activist who became the most prominent leader of the Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s and 1960s, advocated for racial equality through nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience inspired by Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy. King led major campaigns, including the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the March on Washington where he delivered his iconic "I Have a Dream" speech, and the Selma to Montgomery marches. His activism was instrumental in the passage of landmark legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 before his assassination in 1968.

Lawler also apparently said “the bus seat event was all staged” involving Parks, who became an iconic figure in the Civil Rights Movement when she refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery, Alabama bus on December 1, 1955, sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Her act of civil disobedience became a catalyst for the broader fight against racial segregation and discrimination. Parks is widely recognized as the "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement" for her courageous stand against systemic racism and her lifelong advocacy for equality and justice.