A teacher from Indiana resigned after she wore a T-shirt with the number 8647 on a school excursion to the White House.
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The number is a code with the first two digits (86) representing “cancellation” in the restaurant industry and among radical groups “end life.” The second two points to the current president, Donald Trump, as he is America’s 47th president.
Highlights
- The teacher from Indiana uploaded the photo of herself in the 8647 T-shirt to social media.
- The school saw the photo and launched an investigation.
- The teacher resigned a day later with immediate effect.
The woman, Tonja Luken, posted a photo of herself in the custom-printed garment in front of America’s seat of power, which caused a furore that led to a school district investigation and the termination of her social media accounts.
The Indiana education authority has since released a statement distancing itself from the scandal.
The school distanced itself from the teacher with a public notice
Image credits: middleburycs
“Middlebury Community Schools owns policies that require teachers to refrain from using their position to promote partisan political views,” the organization wrote on their Facebook account on June 5.
The school district went on to say that it had become aware of a “social media post made by a teacher while serving as a chaperone on a student trip to our nation’s capital, Washington, D.C.”
Image credits: Tim Luken
“In the posted photograph, the teacher is wearing a T-shirt possessing a partisan political message while supervising students.”
It further noted that an investigation, though hampered by the delayed return of the school trip, was ongoing.
When she heard that the school district planned on canceling her contract, she resigned
Image credits: Tim Luken
A day later, the school district announced it had found a convenient solution to the scandal.
In another Facebook post, they wrote:
“After the conclusion of the school corporation’s interview, when informed the school corporation would be commencing the cancellation of contract, the teacher submitted her immediate resignation.
“The teacher is no longer employed by the school corporation.”
Social media thinks it is “scary” she was allowed so close to the White House
Social media has since weighed in on a post by Libs of TikTok on X, and despite what the account’s name suggests, there was little empathy for Luken.
One netizen took issue with the idea that an individual tasked with shaping children’s minds was advocating violence.
“Teachers who form opinions for our children should absolutely not be advocating assassination of anyone,” they wrote.
Image credits: Getty Images
Another found it “scary” that the Secret Service let her so close the White House.
One commenter noted the woman, Luken, wearing a shirt advocating a assassination while posing next to a colleague with a rainbow on their shirt and the words “be kind.”
“How ironic,” the netizen observed.
It is not the first time the code made it to the spotlight
Image credits: middleburycs
A variation of the numeric sequence, 8645, was used in association with Donald Trump, during his first presidential term when the number occurred on bumper stickers and T-shirts—which are still for sale on Amazon.
When his successor, Joe Biden took the Oval Office in 2020, the number 8646 appeared, marking dissent from right wing elements unhappy with the liberal administration.
More recently, former FBI director, James Comey, who was fired by Trump in 2017, posted a pic of sea shells on beach sand marking out the number 8647, and captioned it “cool shell formation on my beach walk.”
The photo drew reprisals from Republicans with Trump’s son, Trump Jr, summing up the conservative camp’s interpretation of the numbers:
“Just James Comey casually calling for my dad to be murdered,” he wrote.
Image credits: Tim Luken
Comey, following a reaction from Kristi Noem who heads up the Homeland Security Secretary and oversees the Secret service, removed the image from his Instagram account.
He later claimed in an interview with MSNBC, that he did not know the numerical sequence alluded to death.
The term was not always associated with the threat of violence
According to America’s oldest Dictionary publisher, Merriam-Webster, the number 86 actually means “to throw out,” “to get rid of,” or “to refuse service to.”
It originated in the 1930s when it was used as slang over soda counters to explain that an item was out of stock.
Image credits: Tim Luken
The word took a verbal tone when it became paraphrased for refusing a customer service, where after it made its way into bars, where its meaning evolved into evicting drunk patrons.
The association of 86 with demise, according to the dictionary, is a recent and rare thing, and so it has not been included.
Luken is not the internet's favorite teacher after her 8647 stunt
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