Sun Times Beacon-News, East Aurora High School, and Hemant Mehta

On Wednesday, Erika Wurst, reporter for the Sun Times Beacon-News wrote an article about East Aurora High School’s recently adopted policy on gender confusion. In it Wurst quoted a “suburban high school math teacher” who blogged favorably about the policy, but curiously, she didn’t provide his name. His name is Hemant Mehta, also known as “the Friendly Atheist.” Although I am loathe to send anyone to his blog, I think readers deserved to know who exactly the math teacher is whom Wurst quoted. Knowing who he is puts his comments in the proper perspective. 

If you spend any time on Mehta’s blog, you will find that he promotes both atheism and the extraordinarily obscene and hateful religious bigot Dan Savage. In addition, Mehta, who is a Neuqua Valley High School math teacher, regularly uses profane and obscene language. Mehta’s endorsement of the East Aurora High School policy provides further evidence that it’s bad policy. 

It’s understandable why Wurst would not want to provide attribution for a source like Mehta, but such an omission is not good journalism.