Teacher Awaits Day in Court

From the Progressive:

At the end of the meeting, Hahn insisted that the principal, Victoria Rogers, make Mayer refrain from talking about peace again in the classroom. “I think she can do that,” Principal Rogers responded, according to Mayer’s deposition. “I think she can not mention peace in her class again.”

“I was just floored,” Mayer says, “but I said OK because we had a parent out of control, and I didn’t want to be insubordinate. I thought that would be the end of it.”

It wasn’t.

At the end of that day, Principal Rogers circulated a memo, entitled “Peace at Clear Creek,” that said: “We absolutely do not, as a school, promote any particular view on foreign policy related to the situation in Iraq.” And she cancelled the annual “peace month” that the school had been holding.

On February 7, 2003, Rogers also sent Mayer a letter telling her to “refrain from presenting your political views.”

Mayer and her lawyer, Michael Schultz, contend that this illegally infringed on Mayer’s First Amendment rights.

At the end of the spring semester, the school district did not renew Mayer’s contract, and she and Schultz allege that this was in retaliation for her political expression.

Click here for the rest.

You know, after my two posts bashing Baytown, I have to slightly contradict myself and admit that I feel like I was afforded a great deal of latitude when it came to discussing political issues as a teacher in my classroom at Sterling High School. When the Bush administration started beating the drums of war about Iraq, I was pretty scared to talk about it on the job--post 9/11 hyperpatriotism was in full swing at that point, and I really did fear losing my job if I advocated peace, which is one of the reasons I started this blog. But after a while, I realized that pretty much every other teacher was talking about the war and offering their opinions about it to their classes. So, very carefully, I started talking about it, too. For me, the key was to allow dissenting voices, and to give legitimacy to opinions that differed from mine. Heh. High school students are told to shut up so often that it's usually a breath of fresh air when a teacher allows a student with whom he disagrees to speak freely. Many of my kids thought I was crazy for opposing the invasion, but were thankful for the unbridled atmosphere of free speech that I tried to facilitate when I taught. We had some rousing discussions.

But the teacher in the article excerpt above, apparently, didn't go nearly as far as I did in voicing her opposition to the war. If I had been judged by the same standard, I would have been tarred and feathered, and run out of town. Pretty outrageous, if you ask me. I hope she wins her case.

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