Fired art teacher sues school system

The Washington Times ^ | 10-5-07 | Bob Lewis

[JZelle]

RICHMOND — A high school art teacher fired after officials learned that he moonlighted by creating paintings using his bare buttocks and other body parts sued his former employers yesterday.

Stephen Murmer was fired in January after Chesterfield County Public Schools officials saw a YouTube video of Mr. Murmer wearing a swim thong and a Groucho Marx mask, demonstrating how he applies paint to his backside, then presses it onto a canvas.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Richmond by the American Civil Liberties Union, said Mr. Murmer's firing violates his First Amendment rights. It also claims that after he was suspended from teaching in December, school officials ordered him not to discuss his suspension even as they commented on it in news interviews.

The complaint seeks unspecified damages and legal fees from the county school board, a school district personnel official and the principal at Monacan High School, where he taught.

School officials had not seen the lawsuit early yesterday afternoon and do not comment on litigation, said spokeswoman Debra Marlow.

Mr. Murmer said in a telephone interview from Alabama, where he now lives, that the school district deprived him of his right to free expression and his rights to due process.

"This lawsuit is about a corrupt little county in Virginia and making sure they can't do this to anyone else ever again," he said.

[JZelle]

ASSMAN

[Disambiguator]

Coen brothers fan.

[Slapshot68]

What an ass.

[Red Badger]

I bet his painting stinks................

[proxy_user]

Somehow, I never get on the jury for these kinds of cases....

[rocksblues]

Where is that picture of Oh Geez not this S**t again.

[Jeff Chandler]

Another no-talent assclown.

[dfwgator]

There once was a lad from Australia,
who painted his ass like a dahlia,
the color was fine and likewise the design,
but the scent -whew!- that was the failure.

[fweingart]

Sounds a clever chap.

Gee. I wonder what other body parts he used to express his unique art?

I also wonder how long it would have taken him to begin usling his students' body parts?

[Rennes Templar]

Counter-sue the pervert.

[Billthedrill]

I believe Madison specifically had butt paintings in mind when he wrote the First Amendment. Jefferson made him change it. Even now you can get butt paintings by the Founders on ebay...

[ClearCase_guy]

Not one of his paintings.

I haven't seen this fellows "artwork" by I suspect I would prefer the above. Once upon a time, art was viewed ... differently.

[IronJack]

Mr. Murmer ... applies paint to his backside, then presses it onto a canvas.

Self-portrait ...

[Jeff Chandler]

I wonder what the over/under is that this guy has tattoos, and/or body piercings?

[ozzymandus]

All the art teachers I’ve ever seen were weird.

[evets]

guilty

[Jeff Chandler]

There once was a lad from Australia, who painted his ass like a dahlia, the color was fine and likewise the design, but the scent -whew!- that was the failure.

Bravo!

[Rome2000]

OMFG

[dfwgator]

I got it from “Breaker Morant.”

[Joe 6-pack]

Actually the guy that painted that pic, Dante Gabriel Rossetti was a bit of an eccentric himself. He buried a book of poetry with his one time lover, than had her dug up a few years later in order to get his book back...I'm actually a big fan of his, and other pre-Raphaelite artwork...just sayin' eccentricity is not new in the world of the avant-garde.