Teacher Opposed to Gay Marriage Could be Fired

In the "you can't go to jail for this" sense. In the "you can teach our kids" sense? Remains to be seen, I guess.

 

Agreed. Some of you are painting this as a case of liberals trying to take over. But very early in the story it is says the school is investigating whether the comments are biased against homosexuals. I don't think this teacher has the same problem if he doesn't expand on his opinion in a vitriolic way.

So to defend his free speech rights, to me, is missing the point.

 

When a government organization fires you, that's the government punishing you. Not jail, but in the same vein.

 

The fact that calling it "hate" speech means he has no rights to it is very much the point, imo.

 

It is scary. But I'm not a big fan of poilcy made out of fear. It's usually bad policy. If there's even a whiff of evidence that he's done or tried to do anything inappropriate with any of his students, come down on him with the full force of the law. Otherwise, he just falls under the "distasteful side-effect of a free society."

 

I should have specified what I agreed with in Azrael's post. I don't think what the teacher says qualifies as hate speech. But, to me, that doesn't matter much. What the teacher said could be a sign of a bias against certain students or at least open the perception of such. If that violates the school's ethics code, a code that the teacher agreed to at some point, then it doesn't matter if it's free speech, the school should look into it.

I guess the defense could be arguing that the ethics code violates the First Amendment, but aren't there lot of employers with rules that infringe on certain government granted rights?

 

Hence the seriousness of the debate. Who decides what's "hate speech?" You? Crimsonace? Me?

It's like defining "obscenity" - we all feel like we know it when we see it.

That said, the teacher exercised his right to free speech in a public forum. It isn't unreasonable to ask if there's to be a consequence for doing so.

 

Yes.

But the school is a public employer. In other words, the state. That makes it different than Major League Baseball suspending John Rocker.

 

No, no, no. You don't use a "common sense" standard, although I suppose it gets incorporated through the balancing test somehow, which I, again, hate. But one of the things we have decided through our First Amendment is that there will be collateral damage. Otherwise, again, it isn't worth the paper it's written on. In this case, the collateral damage would be - yes - a boy being molested might not get the help he needs. Theoretically, that is the price of free speech in our country. The NAMBLA case came out the other way, by the way. But not because the kids needed to be protected. But because it could cause a school disruption. Which I think is a heckler's veto and inconsistent with our First Amendment values.

 

Azrael, can you dig up for us the court case in which "hate speech" receives a lower level of First Amendment protection?

 

How is it missing the point?

 

It doesn't mean a lower level of 1st Amendment protection.

But the First Amendment doesn't protect a speaker from the consequences of their speech, does it?

And employers have a right to decide standards of appropriate conduct for their employees. I presume this applies to employment by the state as well.