I’ll just give you excerpts of the following article, but please go read it in its entirety. I am holding back from posting anything else today because this is a good one for us to hammer out.
Teacher who said district violated First Amendment rights is awarded $396,000
Published Tuesday, February 28, 2006
by Nicol Jenkins
A former social studies teacher who said his First Amendment rights were violated has received a $396,000 jury award.
Curtis Sherrod, an African American, and former Olympic Heights social studies teacher said after the award: “The district Superintendent violated my constitutional rights and the School Board didn’t make any effort to look into this.”
Four years ago Sherrod filed a $15 million First Amendment lawsuit against the School District of Palm Beach County. He alleged he wasn’t permitted to incorporate African American studies into his Boca Raton classroom. This past week Sherrod received an award from a federal court jury.
“There needs to be a 12-week class with teachers learning African America History,” he said. “I hope the School District realizes what needs to be done in areas of African American studies and the exploration of African American athletes.”
He said it was because of his teachings and request to coach football that he was fired from Olympic Heights in 2002. He was then sent to another district school.
“Sherrod acknowledged “I got complaints from parents every year that I was concentrating too much on African American history.” However, he persisted, that the former Olympic Heights school management “violated my rights of freedom of speech, and they retaliated against me.”
Sherrod also spoke out about what he calls the “plantation state of the football system in Palm Beach County.”
“It’s white management and black laborers. All white coaching staff and mainly 70 percent black players,” Sherrod said. “And what’s happening is we have kids that could be going to school but because there’s no connection being made they are not. And it’s because the white coaches don’t care and they look down on small black schools and it’s devastating.”
Sherrod said he hasn’t given up his dream to influence children. He’s teaching middle school social studies at Delray-Boynton Academy. (more…)
Now for starters, we have to assume here that the classroom was made up of mostly white students ’cause I do not think black parents would have complained.
Keeping that in mind, is this a case of his freedom of speech being violated?
Imagine this: (assuming that you are black) You are a parent of a child that attends a mostly black public school in your community. The teacher (who is white) incorporates a large amount of black crime statistics into his lesson plan. He also talks about the effects of black on white crime. This is a subject close to this teacher’s heart because both his mother and sister were mugged by black men and saw how the court system gave them a slap on the wrist. This teacher doesn’t hate black people, but he feels that this is an issue that should be incorporated in the lesson plan. Parents complain which eventually causes him to loose his job. Has this teacher’s (in this example) right to freedom of speech been violated?
fyi: I think that Sherrod (the real teacher) is correct to point out the ugly nature of the sports industry, so don’t assume that I am discounting his complete argument. The angles to this story are:
#Is it fair to force your opinions on the children of taxpayers?
#Does this teacher know better than the parents?
#Where exactly is the line of demarcation for freedom of speech in the classroom for the teacher?
There are other angles here, but I’ll let you guys point them out.
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