A driver was dismissed after displaying a sign on her bus window stating, “Out of respect to English-only students, there will be no speaking Spanish on this bus.” This sign pushed her too hard to hit rock bottom, has to leave the job. She said that the sign was not meant to be “racially insensitive.”’Diane Crawford, 66, earlier this year, posted the sign on the window of her school bus, which she had driven under contract to Rohrer Bus for the Juniata County School District in Pennsylvania for over a decade. Days later, she was informed that her contract with Rohrer Bus had ended, Newsweek reported.Crawford told local news station CBS 21 last week that her intention was to create a safe and respectful environment, not to target any group. “I didn’t mean to be racially insensitive or anything like that,” she said, adding that she could have worded the sign differently. “Maybe it should have said, ‘No bullying in any language,’ but I didn’t mean it to be anything but to correct him.”Rohrer Bus said in February that it had suspended Crawford as “a precautionary measure,” pending the outcome of an investigation, but Crawford told CBS 21 that she was never suspended and that an investigation did not take place. In a joint statement, Rohrer Bus and the Juniata County School District said the investigation “concluded after the subcontractor provided a written admission confirming that the signage had been installed on her bus.”The incident sparked a debate about the balance between safety and cultural sensitivity in school environments and raised questions about whether Rohrer Bus and the Juniata County School District handled the situation properly.Crawford said she directed the sign at a bilingual student who she said had a history of targeting other students in Spanish. She is now struggling mentally and financially after being terminated. “I’m on Medicare and Medicaid now and SNAP,” she said. “I had to go on antidepressants because of this.” She is requesting $30,000 to help pay for the bus and route she purchased last year and hopes the company and district will acknowledge they were wrong to terminate her.Crawford’s interview prompted an outpouring of sympathy on social media, with prominent right-wing accounts sharing clips. An online fundraiser on GiveSendGo set up by a person identified as Tom Hennessey raised more than $2,000 in donations as of early Monday. The page describes her as a “no-nonsense White grandma” who “stood up for order, safety, and our native language!” and adds that she had only posted the sign because “some foreigner brat was using Spanish to trash-talk and bully the other kids.”A separate fundraiser was recently set up on the same platform for a woman who was fired from a Cinnabon location in Wisconsin after she was captured in a viral video harassing a Somali couple with racist comments.Crawford told CBS 21: “I dedicated everything I had to driving a bus. And it was for the kids. I loved the kids. The kids loved me.”Rohrer Bus and the Juniata County School District said in their joint statement: “Following the incident in question, the District and Rohrer jointly reviewed the situation in accordance with established procedures. The investigation concluded after the subcontractor provided a written admission confirming that the signage had been installed on her bus. At that point, the relevant facts of the situation were fully known and discussed among District and Rohrer leadership. Based on those facts, and after careful consideration, the District and Rohrer determined that the conduct did not align with the standards and expectations for student transportation providers. While initial communications referenced a suspension pending investigation, the matter progressed quickly once the written statement was received, and a final decision was made without delay. Juniata County School District and Rohrer Bus stand by the decision made in this matter and remain committed to providing a safe and inclusive transportation environment for all students.”Indian-origin Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, wrote on X: “This is deeply concerning. I have directed @CivilRights to open an investigation into this situation implicating DEI wokeness.”The right-wing End Wokeness account on X shared a clip of Crawford’s interview, writing: “BREAKING: Beloved school bus driver in PA fired over sign asking kids to speak English.”The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division will reportedly investigate Crawford’s termination.
