Local News in Brief : Parents Ired by Teacher

Parents of students at San Dimas High School are demanding that the school stop using a substitute teacher who compared blacks, Latinos and Italians to dogs while teaching a high school class last month.

School officials acknowledge that teacher James Willard told the students he had developed a theory that certain groups--blacks, Latinos and Italians, for example--are like dogs because they are slovenly, good-natured and tend to run in packs. Anglo-Saxon ethnic groups, Willard reportedly said, resemble cats in that they are more fastidious, independent and intelligent.

The lecture prompted four students, three of whom are black, to walk out of the class and complain to administrators. Mitchell Gilbert, acting superintendent of the Bonita Unified School District, described Willard’s statements as “a mistake in judgment” but said the teacher’s comments were misconstrued and that he is not a racist. Willard will still be used, he said.

Willard could not be reached for comment, but Gilbert said that the teacher, at a meeting with the students and their parents this week, “expressed sorrow that he had inadvertently offended anybody.”