Superintendent responds to teacher firing
Interesting situation brewing up in Bishop. Apparently a teacher posted a picture of a boy holding a fig leaf with the caption "Fuck the Police." Many community members mistook the fig leaf for a marijuana leaf. (It's hard to explain such shear idiocy, but apparently stupid happens.) The district superintendent decided to fire the teacher, claiming that the image was inappropriate and that anyone who would post such material is unfit to work as a teacher in his district. Obviously, the community became outraged over such an arbitrary misuse of power. Although there were those who supported the superintendent (let's just call them idiots), there are more who disagree with his decision (let's call these people Freedom Lovers). So at this point there's lots of arguing between the idiots and the Freedom Lovers and it's hard to say what the eventual outcome of this case will be. Hopefully the Freedom Lovers put the heat on and force the superintendent to resign and the school board to reinstate the teacher! I hate fascists who use their power to stifle free speech. There are little Hitlers like this all over the place and they do not deserve even the slightest iota of respect!
Here's the disputed image:
The meaning of this image is open to interpretation. That alone makes this an artistic statement, which is free speech and it is highly intelligent free speech at that. I, for one, want public school teachers to engage in public discussion of social issues and to discourage such discourse is to my way of thinking anti-intellectual, authoritarian, irresponsible, and goes against everything this country stands for.
The bottom line is that this teacher has one heck of a lawsuit against the school district for wrongful termination. He almost certainly will ultimately win. Some corrupt local judge might back the school district, but take the case to the state supreme court and the district will wind up paying out at least TEN MILLION dollars in legal fees plus the cost of the ultimate settlement. Most likely the district will cut a sweet deal behind closed doors with this guy to get him to shut up and go away. That's usually the way things are done in cases like this.
Lots of interesting comments left in response to this article!
LINK: http://www.sierrawave.net/30311/superintendent-responds-to-teacher-firing/