Retiring Missouri teacher suspended after showing 1959 anti-gay ‘Boys Beware’ video to class

BY Nicole Hensley

Ken Simon, 70, said he was placed on administrative leave at Raymore-Peculiar High School in Missouri for showing an outdated public service announcement.

A teacher at a Missouri high school had to throw in the towel a few weeks earlier than he planned, and faces disciplinary action to boot, after he showed a class full of “sleepy” seniors a decades-old public service announcement that depicted gay men as depraved sexual predators.

The video, an early example of the "stranger-danger" genre, hastened Ken Simon’s retirement, much to the dismay of students who staged protests outside the school on Thursday, reported KCTV-TV.

It’s titled “Boys Beware,” a 1959 film produced by the police department in Inglewood, Calif. It depicts gay men as child predators who lure young men into “intimate relationships” by offering rides, money, fishing trips and pornography.

Two students lodged complaints with the school’s administration over the video’s subject matter, sparking Simon’s suspension less than three weeks shy of his retirement from a 47-year-career at Raymore-Peculiar School District.

“For a stupid video. I showed it just to compare 1959 with 2015,” Simon, 70, told the Daily News. “We talk about the Jews being persecuted, the slave trade, but nobody has ever complained about that.”

A video produced by the Inglewood Police Department in 1959 warned against child luring, but also paints homosexuality as a mental illness.

The same film earned a glowing review from former Florida State Attorney Richard Gerstein, who in 1965 recommended it as required viewing at Dade County high schools to curb what he and others called "homosexuality."

It was “exceptionally well done and in very good taste,” Gerstein was quoted as saying by the Miami News.

Tastes certainly have a way of changing.

“What Jimmy didn’t know was that Ralph was sick. A sickness that was not visible like smallpox, but no less dangerous and contagious. A sickness of the mind,” the film’s narrator explains. “You see, Ralph was a homosexual, a person who demands an intimate relationship with members of their own sex.”

Students have taken to protesting Ken Simon’s suspension after showing the 1959 video to a class of seniors.

Simon said he taught world history for most of his lengthy career, but in his final weeks he found himself teaching a class on the psychology of law enforcement, the judicial system and the dangers of sex offenders - a waste of his time, he said, since he had no experience in public safety.

Looking for a change of pace, he found the “Boys Beware” film on Youtube and thought it would be “funny” to show students the outdated depictions of gay men. His bored senior class - slated to graduate at the end of this week - did not seem interested, Simon said.

Past teachers in his position have also shown students episodes of “Cops,” he said.

A former student came to the beleaguered teacher's defense, drafting a petition that says the students took Simon’s lesson out of context and has already been signed by more than 3,500 people.

“The administration then decided to make a rash and uncalled for decision to suspend a teacher, who is about to retire this very year, for fulfilling his duty in educating his students,” the petition’s creator, Alex Taylor, wrote.

Simon said he was grateful Taylor, and also his current and past students, who have reached out to show their support.

“Words can’t express my gratitude to those people,” Simon added.

Raymore-Peculiar School District officials said they would not address specifics of Simon’s employment status but said the matter will have no impact on his retirement benefits.

The district has no policy against showing historic news clips, including those regarding LGBT issues, the district’s spokeswoman, Michele Stidham, told The News.