Why the Romney T-shirt teacher doesn't need to apologize*
News blogs, sports blogs, entertainment blogs, and more from Philly.com, The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News.
Why the Romney T-shirt teacher doesn't need to apologize*
“The President has stripped his events of anyone who might disagree with him, which is completely un-American. It is dangerous for a President to be the bubble boy of American politics. But it might explain why the President can’t admit the problems of people without jobs, without health care, without prescription drugs, or trying to put their kids through college. He doesn’t know about them because he refuses to even see them."
I couldn't agree with that comment more...today, or when it was uttered, about then-President George W. Bush and his campaign, by then-DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe. The incident that inspired that comment happened in Medford, Ore., eight years ago this month, when three women were barred from a Bush rally for wearing T-shirts that read "Protect Our Civil Liberties." And that was not an isolated event. Even after Bush was re-elected, in early 2005, the White House barred certain folksfrom a rally in Fargo, N.D., because they had the audacity to belong to a local chapter of (heh) Democracy for America. (The link is from Fox News, so it must be true.)
I remember this era well because it was in 2004 that I started blogging and in February 2005 -- the same month as the fiasco in Fargo -- that I launched Attytood. And frankly, these kind of clampdowns on free speech are exactly the thing that radicalized me after two decades of struggling, and often succeeding, to be a journalist with the opinion side of his brain castrated (is that a mixed metaphor?). I started feeling differently not long after 9/11 -- starting with Ari Fleischer telling me I had to watch what I said and with Congress passing the Patriot Act to find out what was in it, and amped up by a magnitude of 100 when the Iraq War lies started flowing. There were things happening in this country that "he said, she said" journalism was powerless to stop. And these restrictions on the ability of Americans to speak their mind freely sickened me more than just about anything.
The other day, I got that sickening feeling (no relation to this) all over again. This time, it was from reading news accounts right here in Philadelphia that a 17-year-old high school student had been mocked and riduculed by her geometry teacher for wearing a Romney-Ryan T-shirt, who told her to remove the shirt and who likened the GOP ticket to the KKK.
My first thought that this was every bit as bad as the Bush-era campaign rally incidents that I had written about seven or eight years ago. But then I realized that in some ways this is worse. Those earlier abuses happened at political events, where, unfortunately, we've learned to expect tomfoolery. This was coming from a teacher at a school -- where kids are supposed to learn how to formulate their own opinions on the world...and then express them. Where young people should learn (despite what they say deep in the heart of Texas) critical thinking. And where they also find out that the First Amendment can indeed make America exceptional...if we can keep it.
My initial reaction over the weekend also was that not only should the teacher -- who's tried very badly to explain this as a joke gone awry -- apologize but that Mayor Nutter should add this as a stop on what feels like a non-stop, city-wide apology tour. Those things happened more or less, but they did not send a strong enough message about free speech and public education. I headlined this blog post "Why the Romney T-shirt teacher doesn't need to apologize"...followed by an asterisk.
The asterisk stand for...because Lynette Gaymon should be fired, for turning a public classroom into a no-free-speech zone. End of story.
I was reminded of the incident 10 days ago at Philadelphia's Puerto Rican Day Parade where a cop who'd been squirted by water slapped and knocked down a woman who, to make matters even worse, seemed to have nothing to do with the incident. The police commissioner looked at the video, thought about it for a day or two...and moved to fire the offending lieutenant. Well, Lynette Gaymon slapped the First Amendment and knocked it to the ground. Short of physical violence or sexual abuse, it's hard to imagine worse behavior from a teacher.
Which is why an apology should be too little and too late to save her job.
Mr. Bunch, we are talking about children here. The girl made up her mind based upon her research, right or wrong. She was b*tchslapped for expressing her thoughts. I always thought that places of education were for developing ideas and not for being places where one is ridiculed for expressing their ideas. I personally don't think that Ms. Gaymon should be fired, but she should practice her beliefs and be tolerant. She needs to be re-programmed so that she follows her words.— FletcherT
Comment removed.- Gaymon won't be fired. She is now a hero to the extreme radical left.— bil,l atkins
- Comment removed.
- No need to call for the woman's job. Settle down Beavis.— MD20202020
- //The asterisk stand for...because Lynette Gaymon should be fired, for turning a public classroom into a no-free-speech zone. End of story.///
Agreed, 100%. But we all know that will never happen.— General Turgidson - What Bush did was much worse, and strangely, he didn't get either called out for it (he jailed people walking to work when the RNC was setting up. Jailed them for days just as a "pre-emptive" thing) or fired. Shame on you, Bunch, for jumping on the bandwagon and exaggerating a simple misunderstanding into a hate crime. Should you be fired the next time you accidentally irritate someone? Oh wait.— sophistry
- "Shame on you, Bunch, for jumping on the bandwagon and exaggerating a simple misunderstanding into a hate crime." What planet are you from?? i can't even imagine the comments you would be posting if that was a white teacher saying that to a black girl for wearing an pbama shirt.. you can't possibly be that naieve. clearly this was not an "accident" you blind moron, slipping and falling is an accident. but for a teacher to ridicule a student under any circumstances is wrong. — jay36
- I suspect I'll be cussin' you out a lot between now and 11/6/12 Bunchie, but I couldn't agree with you more here. Teachers should be educators, not indoctrinators, especially if the public is paying them.— Frank S.
- I don't think Gaymon saw what was wrong with what she did.
Probably thought she was an Eagles fan in South Philly encountering a Giants fan walking down the street.— Mr. Smith - Comment removed.
- While I disagree with what Gaymon said, and find it unprofessional, I'm not ready to call for her job. People say stupid things, Will, like when you called for Penn State to be broken up into satellite campuses after the Sandusky story broke.
"Gaymon won't be fired. She is now a hero to the extreme radical left."
So Bunch isn't part of the "extreme radical left"?— wokmaster - She SHOULD be fired, and here's why - a friend of mine used to be a teacher in a Phila. school. A black kid accused him, a white man, of saying the "n" word, which he hadn't. (I've never heard him say it, either.) He was fired simply based on the accusation. This teacher made a KKK reference, which is certainly bad enough for dismissal. It would be if the races were reversed here. (Apologies for spelling errors...I can't see the right side of my post.) — uncle meat
- If the teacher was serious in what she said and not some lame teasing, then she was absolutely wrong and should be suspended. But I really question this kids need to wear the shirt in the first place. If the school was holding a mock draft or election, fine. But just to wear it to solicit a reaction was poor judgement. I blame the parents.— chasing history
- Both sides restrict t-shirts, signs, etc at their rallies. They are political and they have every right to do so-either side. The teacher should be fired, but I am sure the AFT will start a scholarship in her name.SEIU may even name a building after her. The union thug went right for the race card.It's the only thing the left knows how to do.— georgel
- Andrew Sullivan
- Blinq
- Blogorrhea
- Blonde Sagacity
- Free Republic
- Instapundit
- James Taranto
- ScrappleFace
- The Corner
- Buzzmachine
- Eat the Press
- Editor and Publisher
- Media (Huffington Post)
- Media Bloodhound
- Mickey Kaus
- Pressthink
- Romenesko
- The Inksniffer
- A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago
- Above Average Jane
- BlankBaby
- Citizen Mom
- Keystone Blog
- Metroblogging Philadelphia
- Phawker
- Philadelphia - America's Hometown
- Philadelphia Will Do
- Philebrity
- Philly Future
- Phillyblog
- Phillyist
- The Clog
- The Next Mayor
- Welcome to Phillyville
- Young Philly Politics
- Afro-Netizen
- All-Spin Zone
- Atrios
- Bad Attitudes
- Billmon
- Booman Tribune
- CorrenteWire
- Fables of the Reconstruction
- iFlipFlop
- Kiko's House
- MyDD
- Philly (Dragonballyee)
- Rowhouse Logic
- Slacktivist
- Suburban Guerilla
- Tattered Coat
- upyernoz
- AmericaBlog
- Andy Borowitz
- BuzzFlash
- Crooks and Liars
- Cursor
- Daily Kos
- David Sirota
- Drudge Report
- Echidne of the Snakes
- Fire Dog Lake
- Glenn Greenwald
- Hullabaloo
- Jesus' General
- Jon Swift
- Josh Marshall
- Juan Cole
- Kevin Drum
- Mad Kane
- Majikthise
- Matthew Yglesias
- Oliver Willis
- Raw Story
- Swing State Project
- Talk Left
- Taylor Marsh
- TBogg
- The Carpetbagger Report
- Think Progress
- War and Piece
- Wonkette
- A Citizen's Blog
- Balls, Sticks and Stuff
- Beer Leaguer
- Dick Polman
- Phillies Nation
- Philling Station
- Shallow Center
- The 700 Level
- The Good Phight
