Free Speech or Decency?

Freedom Of Speech, Decency or Both?

I don’t think parents are buying the Springfield School District’s “reasoning” over the issue of a female teacher protesting outside the school topless.

I know, some of you are saying to yourself, “WTF?”

In a note, the district told parents the teacher was not “working”, off school property, and exercising her right to protest.

Great, knock yourself out.

But why near the school where her students' parents, high school boys, and the public could see?

She had a political message and apparently wanted to make a big splash and grab lots of attention.

Okay, we gave it to her.

But if it was about her message, no one remembers that all they see is a teacher standing topless in downtown Springfield.

I don’t think she should be canceled for it, but are there consequences for such actions?

Apparently not from the district’s response.

What about the students who didn’t cheer her on but instead were silently embarrassed and felt uncomfortable going to her class after seeing more of the teacher than they bargained for?

Isn’t the job of a public educator to teach all students?

There are lots of less titillating ways to thoughtfully get your message across.

We hear a lot about toning down the “rhetoric,” but is it okay to bare your breasts in public for a political cause?

How is that “toning down?”

If a man were to expose himself across the street from a school and call it a protest, would we be okay with that?

Perhaps it’s time to class it up a bit, and I don’t mean a classroom.

What happened to decourum?

Many think this teacher took it too far.

You’re an educator, and that comes with some responsibility to your students, all of them, and the public.

My parents and my grandmother were all teachers.

It used to be an admirable profession.

We’ve got teachers publicly supporting the murder of Charlie Kirk, and now this.

And you wonder why education has such a bad name, especially in Oregon.

Come on, class it up a bit.

I get plenty of comments from left-leaning folks telling me to tone down the noise and stop stirring things up.

Perhaps you should practice what you preach.

This teacher must have known what she was doing would bring lots of attention.

But what she failed to calculate into the equation (she’s a math teacher) is that her true message got lost, and the only thing people are paying attention to is her topless show.

It doesn’t add up.

We talk a lot about giving kids a comfortable atmosphere to learn in.

Yes, this teacher probably has the right to do what she did.

But was she thinking about that girl or boy sitting in the third seat from the back of the classroom who is now uncomfortable being in the class but can’t say anything, or does that matter?

I don’t think this is a question of freedom of speech.

I think it’s decency and remembering your position in the community as a trusted teacher.

Stick to numbers and solving equations, and let the health teacher handle the anatomy lessons the old-fashioned way, pictures in a textbook.