Why the Romney T-shirt teacher doesn't need to apologize*
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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.
Comment removed.
Rufus, i have to disagree. Most HS seniors are old enough to vote so politics should have a place. However, teachers shouldn't pro/con any politician. They should have open discussion and not take sides.— palmyra21- chasing history: You can't be serious. Why can't a person wear a shirt? Stop with this nonsense. Unless she was a devoted right winger in school, no one would know why she wore the shirt. For all anyone knows, she wore the shirt because it was pink and she likes the color pink.— Phillies2008WSChamps
- The Democrats are scared about this one. Mayor Urkel is desperate to find a way to make this one just go away. This is now embarrassing Our Supreme Overlord Barry.— bil,l atkins
- Comment removed.
- I agreed with will bunch. I better call my doctor.
But seriously, credit to you for being consistent at least.— Northeaster - I'm so stunned that Bunch didn't side with Gaymon because she's a left winger that I don't even know what to say about whether or not she should be fired.— drbob1
- Yes, the teacher was wrong. Yes, the "joke" was inappropriate. However, there is a large difference between a reprimand offense and a firing offense. Having sex with a student warrants immediate firing. Making sexually or racially insensitive statements to students warrants immediate firing. Physically attacking a student warrants immediate firing. Telling a poor political joke is simply NOT of the same caliber. Do we really want to start firing good teachers for displaying a bad sense of humor on one occasion? Geometry teachers do not grow on trees and I don't see how anybody wins... including the offended student... if a substandard (or worse) teacher takes over that class. Remember, given the dearth of qualified teachers available these days especially in math and science, they will almost certainly get a less qualified replacement. The important point here is that we are talking about one offense at this time. If it becomes a pattern (or if this instance was part of an ongoing pattern), that is a different matter, but one error... an error that was not of a sexual or racial or other truly verboten nature... should not merit ruining peoples' lives over... and, by that, I am referring to both the teacher AND her students.— kobrakai7474
- Mr. Bunch, if this was the 1950s and it was a white teacher telling a black kid
"You can't be that color in this school, this is a white school",
you'd be supporting that teacher, saying she didn't need to apologize. Today, it's a black teacher telling a white kid
"You can't wear that T-shirt in this school, this is a Democrat school".
The teacher not only used race as a divisive force (that is, she was racist) by race-baiting the student (likening the 16 year old girl's behaviour to the KKK), she bullied the student so badly the kid wouldn't even go back into the class, but she broke the law on politicking while on the state payroll. Your right, she shouldn't have to apologize, she should be fired. Apologizing would show her class, but not apologizing shows her class, too.
And as for you and many of the folks on this blog, don't you feel any pangs of conscience for blaming the girl,or her parents. Maybe your right. Sam Pawlucy, and those black kids in the 1950s were the problem, not the teachers. The kids caused this by being "uppity", right?
The disappointing thing about this is that Martin Luther King wanted racism against blacks to be defeated by everyone showing high moral character. What upsets me so much is that apparently folks think that racism can be defeated by everyone being racist.
Your attempt to draw the focus away from what the teacher did to a student, and what her friends the teacher's union and the Democrats are doing today by conjuring up inane irrelevant stories of political rallies eight years ago is pathetic, but pretty much what I expect from you. Keep blaming those uppity students, pal.— WizardofBoz - The oppressed have become the oppressors.— cgraham
- The oppressed have become the oppressors.— cgraham
- Ok, gotta read the whole article. Saw the lead-in with the anti-Bush blather and extrapolated based upon your past articles. (By the way, every hear of inverted triangle writing? I think you're supposed to put the big stuff, like conclusions, at the top of the article). Anyway, Bunch, we agree on action (fire the teacher), but not on the rationale. Schools are not free speech zones. Fifteen year old students should not be allowed to debate whether the fundamental law of calculus is true. Nor if the Bill of Rights came into effect in 1791. And a teacher does not have the right to politick for one party or another, or one candidate. Nor should a teacher give an assigment "Interview your parents, and if they aren't voting FOR the school bond, ask them why they hate education". A teacher actually did something like that, and was fired. Because all taxpayers support public schools, public schools only work if students, teachers, and administration exercise self-restraint.
There are three reasons why the teacher should be fired. First, she used racist, or at least race-baiting criticism on a student who, at 16, would be expected to be profoundly sensitive to criticism by authority. She should be fired because she bullied the student, and encouraged other staff and students to belittle and bully the student (isn't anti-bullying the cause du jour these days? with zero tolerance?). Last, she should be fired because she actively politicked while on the payroll.
And, as I stated earlier, she should be viewed as a negative role model anyway: giving in to comfortable corruption and racial intolerance, where "it's ok, because now everyone is a little bit racist".
The woman still hasn't accepted any responsibility for her actions. No character. I wouldn't want her teaching my kid. Apparently Sam's parents agree.— WizardofBoz - Philly schools are the land of the absurd. Gaymon is a disgrace. Her union is a disgrace. The school administrators are a disgrace.— joedog
- After a week, Will is the first and only so-called journalist at either newspaper to simply have the guts and integrity to do the right thing in this instance and go against the party line who put politics above doing what's right. I dont know why it's even a close call. And I give him credit for it despite him being somehow compelled to mention another incident to take the sting out of it.— tr88
- While I agree with your view, I wonder why you felt the need to preface your criticism of this teacher with a slap at George Bush from 8 years ago, and leading with a quote criticizing him from the head of the DNC from that period. Isn't it possible to judge this event on its own merits without trying to couch your conclusion in that "but the Republicans do it too" language? It's the kind of approach the mainstream media takes all the time when it's forced to criticize the conduct of their friends on the left. Obama rarely has to explain away or rationalize something that he says or does because the newscasters go from a short recitation of the facts to a "but we must point out . . ." explanation of why it's not really newsworthy or why we shouldn't place any importance on it at all. I wish all the media outlets would just give us the facts and let us decide what they mean to us, neither the view from the left or the right is fair and balanced and everything is spun. I'm no fan of Bush but he's been out of office long enough that using old stories about him to ease the sting of criticism of today's actors is getting old.— Maine.fan
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