COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: War Protests: General
Judge Rules Teachers Have No Free Speech Rights in Class
Matthew Rothschild, Progressive Magazine
March 24, 2006
Here's an update on Deb Mayer, the teacher who said her contract was notrenewed because she answered a student's question about whether she
would participate in a demonstration for peace. (See "Teacher Awaits Day
in Court" <http://progressive.org/mag_mc012506>.)
Her case involves an incident that occurred on January 10, 2003, at
Clear Creek Elementary School in Bloomington, Indiana.
The students were reading an article in Time for Kids about peace
protests. She responded to the student's question by saying she
sometimes honks for peace and that it's important to seek out peaceful
solutions both on the playground and in society. Afterwards, the parents
of one of the students got angry and insisted that she not speak about
peace again in the classroom. Mayer's principal so ordered her.
When the school district did not renew Mayer's contract at the end of
the semester, she sued for wrongful termination and for violation of her
First Amendment rights.
On March 10, Judge Sarah Evans Barker dismissed Mayer's case, granting
summary judgment to the defendants.
The judge said the school district was within its rights to terminate
Mayer because of various complaints it received from parents about her
teaching performance.
But beyond that, Judge Barker ruled that "teachers, including Ms. Mayer,
do not have a right under the First Amendment to express their opinions
with their students during the instructional period."
The judge ruled that "school officials are free to adopt regulations
prohibiting classroom discussion of the war," and that "the fact that
Ms. Mayer's January 10, 2003, comments were made prior to any
prohibitions by school officials does not establish that she had a First
Amendment right to make those comments in the first place." The judge
also implied that Mayer, by making her comments, was attempting to
"arrogate control of the curricula."
And the judge gave enormous leeway to school districts to limit
teachers' speech in the classroom.
"Whatever the school board adopts as policy regarding what teachers are
permitted to express in terms of their opinions on current events during
the instructional period, that policy controls, and there is no First
Amendment right permitting teachers to do otherwise," Judge Barker wrote.
The judge "has simply gotten the law wrong," says Michael Schultz,
Mayer's attorney. "There is a long line of authority that teachers do
not check their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse door. And, in
this case, Ms. Mayer was asked for her opinion in the context of
teaching the approved curriculum. She only gave her opinion in a very
appropriate, limited way and then related the issue to the students'
lives (i.e., on the playground), and then moved on in the lesson. If
giving one's opinion in response to a legitimate (and predictable)
question is fair game for making a decision to terminate a teacher, who
will want to teach? And, more importantly, what impact will this state
of affairs have on the quality of instruction?"
Mayer says she's going to appeal. "It's too important not to," she says.
"Teachers everywhere are at risk because of what this judge has said."
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