Fowler was offended by teacher's button.
Posted on 02/27/2003 7:02:46 AM PST by SMEDLEYBUTLER
Anti-Bush sentiment a hot-button issue
Teacher's political expression sparks free-speech debate
By Nancy Mitchell, Rocky Mountain News
February 27, 2003
Linda Fowler is proud of her military roots.
Fowler was offended by teacher's button.
Her grandfather served in World War II. Her father is a Korean War veteran. Assorted relatives and friends are now en route to possible war in the Middle East.
So when Fowler's son came home from West Jefferson Middle School a couple weeks ago and described a button his teacher wore that day, an emblem bearing the sentiment "He's Not My President," her response was immediate and intense.
Fowler went ballistic.
"Both my husband and I were very offended by it. My son, who's in the sixth grade, had some very confused feelings, very hurtful feelings about the whole thing," she said. "I'm trying to stress to my child that (Bush) is the commander in chief and the armed forces are trying to protect us."
Fowler's husband, Tom, fired off an e-mail to school Principal Jean Kelley urging her to "stop this practice immediately" and warning that, if Kelley did not, "I will pursue other means."
Tuesday, the Fowlers received their response: The teacher "has the right to wear any political buttons that she wishes, as part of her protection under the First Amendment," Kelley wrote.
Linda Fowler doesn't like that answer.
"I'm truly not happy with that," she said. "You can have your opinion; no one is telling you that you can't have your opinion. But when you have children in the classroom, they're a captive audience. You have to be careful."
The teacher could not be reached for comment. Kelley referred questions to district spokesman Rick Kaufman.
Kaufman, in a joint statement from the district and the Jefferson County teachers union, said teachers have the same First Amendment rights "as all Americans." But they agreed that teachers "must be judicious" in expressing their opinions to avoid politicizing the classroom and must provide a neutral atmosphere.
Kaufman also said the West Jefferson Middle School incident isn't really a First Amendment issue because the teacher didn't wear the button in the classroom - she wore it on her coat during a field trip.
"The teacher has not and is not wearing the button in the classroom," he said. "She has not politicized her classroom, nor tried to convince her students of her point of view."
Had the teacher worn the button inside the classroom while teaching, Kaufman said he believes the district has the right to ask her to take it off.
"We believe we have a legitimate educational interest in requiring teachers to refrain from displaying their personal beliefs with respect to matters of political controversy when they're interacting with students," he said.
Not everyone agrees with that.
"We don't believe that teachers lose their First Amendment rights when they enter the school building," said Jeanne Beyer, spokeswoman for the Colorado Education Association. For example, teachers can wear stickers expressing unity during contract talks.
But, she noted, "the second part of that whole discussion is, is it appropriate? Even if your right is, in fact, protected, is it appropriate in your role as a professional educator to do that?"
Other metro school districts have yet to grapple with the issue. In Cherry Creek, spokeswoman Tustin Amole said a check with legal officials seemed to indicate an anti-war or anti-Bush button "is constitutionally protected free speech."
"We probably wouldn't do anything about it unless it's created a disruption in the classroom," Amole said. "If so, we would take another look at it."
However, Stu Stuller, an attorney with Caplan & Earnest, the firm representing Jeffco schools, said other things besides a teacher's First Amendment rights come into play when he or she steps in front of a classroom.
District officials can regulate a teacher's speech - including T-shirts with slogans and buttons - as long as the regulations are "reasonably related" to instructional concerns and meet certain other criteria, he said. That includes ensuring the teaching does not associate the school district "with a position other than neutrality" on matters of public importance.
For example, he said, a government teacher might question a student's commitment to a candidate as a means of developing critical-thinking skills. But the teacher should not endorse one candidate over another.
Linda Fowler, despite her husband's earlier e-mail, said she has no interest in pursuing legal action against the district.
"I'm a proud, brave American, and I'm going to stand up for my country," she said. "I just don't want to see that type of thing in school, and I think they should be addressing a whole lot of other more important issues."
The First Amendment
• "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
mitchelln@RockyMountainNews.com or (303)892-5245
Copyright 2003, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.
School principal Jean Kelley: jkelly@jeffco.k12.co.us
I actually still have a Bush t-shirt from the campaign which I'll gladly donate to the cause. :-)
FReepers got yer back, sir...MUD
Dear Ms Kelley:
I recently read about Mrs. Fowler's son and how his sixth-grade teacher has been wearing an anti-Bush button on her clothing.
Although this "teacher" certainly has a right to wear such a button, it is hardly appropriate and a poor civics lesson to the teacher’s sixth grade students. These students are hardly well enough informed to be able to make their own decision on the complicated issue of the 2000 Presidential election and having a teacher parade around the class room with a button announcing her opposition to the President, especially as we are about to go to war, cannot be a good idea.
When I went to school, my teachers were always even-handed in their approach to subjects. They were careful to teach all sides of an issue. Back then, one of my teachers would never have taught a classroom full of impressionable students wearing a button that portrays their opposition to the President of the United States.
But that was 20 years ago and sadly, this apparently has changed. The practice of impartial teachers that would allow their students to come to their own conclusions on such a controversial issue must no longer exist.
To me, the real irony is how students are often not allowed to wear certain clothing because it is “distracting” or “insensitive” to the other students, yet the teachers, apparently, are allowed to do just that. Talk about hypocrisy….
Cordially,
Tom Duensing Chicago, IL.
"The teacher who is wearing an anti-Bush button should be reprimanded for being overtly partisan around her students. If nothing else, she should setting an example of showing respect for the office of the President, regardless who inhabits the Oval Office.
This teacher has no right to blatantly push her left-wing political viewpoints during working hours when she's being paid by taxpayers to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. If she wants to bang on her nasty left-wing drums, she should be doing it on her own time and away from the classroom.
Would you defend my "First Amendment rights" if I were one of your teachers and wore buttons to school which said "Clinton is a Rapist" or "Return what you stole from the White House, Hillary" on them? Of course you wouldn't!!!
Talk about wretched hypocrisy........"
If this field trip was with students, then she was in the 'classroom'.
The kid should wear a T-shirt with a big picture of a smiling Bush which says "If he's not YOUR President, you are NOT an American!"
That is still a school sanctioned event - she should not be wearing it there either. She should take it off, until she is on her own time!
I'm not arguing that, but the teacher wasn't wearing the button in the classroom.
The education establishment has become a "no conservatives need apply" area of endeavor, much like most of the media. You can make the teacher take the button off, but you can't make her stop slanting everything the kids hear towards liberal politics. I used to worry that teachers had the power to brainwash kids into believing liberal politics, but it doesn't seem to stick. Those who are inclined to reject it promptly do so, once mouthing leftist platitudes is no longer a requirement to get a grade or a diploma. What does happen though is that smaller children are torn, and this is not fair to them. They have alternate authority figures in their lives -- their parents and their teachers -- telling them opposite things about basic 'values' issues. They're too young to figure it out for themselves, so all it does is conflict them. It also exposes them to the truth that grownups don't really know what they're doing, at a time when they could go a few more years without finding that out. I don't think there is a way to stop liberal advocates from gravitating toward positions like teacher and reporter where they can proselytize on behalf of their politics. It seems to be in their blood to do this, and also to band together to force opposing views out of jobs that wield more than average cultural influence. The only defense that is known to work against this is to form competing institutions, such as Fox News in the media, and let people make choices. This means that the only way to stop the blizzard of liberal propaganda in the schools is to institute some sort of choice mechanism by which government funding goes with the child, not to the school. Those schools which attract students will then get the funding, and parents will have something to say about that. Worrying about individual teachers whose heads pop up in a game of liberal whack-a-mole is probably a waste of time. The truth is that every mole in the machine is a liberal ideologue, and most of them will never make a big enough noise to get noticed. |
Yeah, Oops. I noticed that after rereading the article--I had already sent the note. Thanks for pointing it out though.
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Having the teacher take the button off is not going to change what goes on in her head. This same thing is happening throughout Maine, and probably everywhere if truth be known.