Posted on 06/17/2004 7:21:12 AM PDT by esryle
COVINGTON, Ky. (AP) -- When Covington schools Superintendent Jack Moreland saw an advertisement for a Chippendales show, he thought it would be a good morale booster for his female employees. So he shelled out $420 to send 20 female staff members to a Chippendales show to see buff men strip off most of their clothing.
It worked, but it also raised the ire of at least one person, who wrote an anonymous letter to the state Office of Education Accountability accusing Moreland of using school-district funds to pay for the strip show.
Moreland said he spent $420 of his own money for the show - and faxed his personal credit-card receipt to investigators.
"I did it in fun, and they went in fun, and I don't think there was any harm done," he said.
Bryan Jones, a lawyer for the Office of Education Accountability, said he couldn't confirm or deny whether his office looked into a complaint.
The women who attended the show said they enjoyed it.
"We just laughed and laughed and laughed," said Jena Meehan, the superintendent's secretary. "It was a spectacle, to be sure, and to have all of us there was even funnier."
Chippendales is a high-class male revue that became popular in the 1980s. Well-muscled young men wearing bow-ties and bare chests strip to scanty undies for female audiences.
Moreland is the former president of the Council for Better Education, the superintendents group that brought the historic lawsuit that resulted in the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 and its revolutionary reform of Kentucky's public schools.
If you’re going to totally destroy somebody’s career by attempting to get them fired, you should at least be upfront about it.
Hiding behind the cover of anonymity is nothing short of cowardly.
Had nothing to do with courage.
Well, I’m glad you backed off your absurd previous assertion that it did.
I find that hard to believe...of course, it may be true, I just find it hard to believe. Where is this school?
Pray for W and Our Awesome Troops
Private reply on the way. Believe me, it's true.
"And that they wrote it anonymously demonstrates wisdom, not a lack of courage"
It shows cowardice AND ulterior motives!
This *IS* my name on this board - and every other one I am on!
"Apparently the Chippers didn't get quite the reaction they were hoping for from this group:"
If you had ever seen the movie "The Full Monty" you would understand. It is a typical reaction from women in a strip club and is very different from men. Women seem to laugh and enjoy themselves more and are not nearly as serious. The male strippers understand this and no offense is taken.
If you had seen the movie, you would be hard pressed to call male stripping sexual at all. It is more of a comedy routine than anything else.
You assume that all of the public provocation over this was simply impeachable offenses. You assume wrong.
Like Jesus' cousin, John the Baptist, some of us were also provoked by Clinton's quasi-legal "on-the-job" actions (I don't think sex with interns in the White House was part of the presidential job description, do you?).
John the Baptist was publicly upset with (rebuked) Herod the tetrarch because he was sleeping with Herodias, his brother's wife, "and all the other evil things he had done." (Luke 3:19)
Was Herod sleeping with Herodias legal? Of course. Passages like Luke 3:19, where John's rebuke is mentioned, trump your "whatever-is-legal-is-moral" philosophy anytime, even if we wind up losing our head about it like John did (Luke 3:20ff).
"And what could possibly be wrong with educators who moon-light as comedians?"
Nothing.
The guy is not in trouble because someone wrote an annonymous letter. He is in trouble because he demonstrated a lack of judgement and morals.
The person was courageous to do something about it and wise not to use their name given the superintendent has power over them.
And "Steplock" might be your name but it's not your whole name. It's not enought to identify you. So by your own standard, you are a coward with ulterior motives.
I doubt these teachers have a morals clause in their contracts. You're asking that the people involved be fired for engaging in immoral behavior, which is a purely subjective standard. Now, in most states, your employer could fire you for engaging in immoral behavior off the job, but since these are government workers, that's tougher to do. They'll probably be covered by a collective bargaining agreement which will probably have an illegal conduct clause, but is unlikely to have a morals clause.
As an employer, you could fire somebody for engaging in what you consider immoral behavior. If I was an employer, however, I would not be interested in my employees' private lives unless they impacted on their job performance.
"You're buying into the Clintonian argument that "It's all about sex." In Clinton's case, he wasn't impeached because he was a sleazeball, he was impeached because he committed perjury."
You are forgetting that many Republicans agreed with Clinton. To them it was "all about sex".
Once again, your whatever-is-legal-is-moral philosophy shines right through. To you, Nevada educators (in some communities there) could be moonlighting whores, perhaps even having sex with their 18-year-old students while on their second job. That's legal; guess it must be moral, eh?
To you, educators who recruit former students once they turn 18 in order to exploit them as part of their online porn biz would be just dandy. That's legal; guess it must be moral, eh?
Of course, we all know that any legal-but-shady activity any educator does off-campus in the presence of impressionable young minds has absolutely no influence upon them.
True. I supported him being impeached. However, if he had been impeached over the fact that he had an affair and then lied about it (without perjuring himself), I would have been opposed to impeachment.
Like I said, morality is a subjective standard for judging whether someone should be fired. Keep in mind, there are many people in this country who consider being conservative as "immoral." I am assuming that these teachers do not have a morals clause in their employment contract. Therefore, you probably couldn't fire them for whoring in Nevada. They almost certainly have a clause in their contract against sleeping with students.
To you, educators who recruit former students once they turn 18 in order to exploit them as part of their online porn biz would be just dandy. That's legal; guess it must be moral, eh?
Again, assuming no morals clause and that everyone involved is a legal adult, I'm fine with it.
Of course, we all know that any legal-but-shady activity any educator does off-campus in the presence of impressionable young minds has absolutely no influence upon them.
Huh? What impressionable young minds were influenced here?
Haven't seen the movie. Haven't crossed the threshold of a movie theater in 15 years. It's hard to find anything there to hold my attention.
I've never been to a male strip show. Looking at naked strangers isn't my idea of fun.
If they weren't married, say single and shopping, would that be O.K?
bump
Morals are subjective. Laws are objective. I think he has made that point very clear.
Are you arguing that everything that is moral -- is legal?
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