We (myself included) are ASSUMING that the non-religious kid was in the right and that the teacher and principal were in the wrong. MAYBE that’s exactly correct. OR maybe the non-religious kid did something more serious to make the other kid cry, and the teacher MAY have isolated him for good reasons.
IF the OP’s version is correct, and a Christian kid just started crying because another kid said his family wasn’t religious, well, then the teacher should have told the weepy kid, “You can’t cry every time you hear a differing opinion” and the non-religious kid should not have been punished in any way.
But where 7 year olds (and Internet memes) are concerned? How sure are you that’s precisely how it went down?
This is interesting: The suit was filed against the teacher personally. The school, school district, school board, etc were not named as defendants. The only defendant is the teacher.
Unless there is a provision in the teachers’ contract requiring the school board to cover the teacher or the teacher has professional liability insurance, she is going to be personally on the hook for legal fees and whatever judgement might result.
This bothers me in two respects:
Incompetent teachers should face the consequences of their actions. They should be disciplined, retrained, or fired. But if mishandling a playground dispute can lead to the financial ruin of a teacher, a lot of good teachers are going to be thinking twice about the career. If a dispute with a parent or a child means they will be hauled into court and lose their homes and their savings, is it worth the risk?
The school board is off the hook. The court has no jurisdiction over them. They cannot be ordered to better train or supervise the teachers or to institute new policies to protect the students.
And before anyone says that respondeat superior makes the school board liable and lets the teacher off the hook, that’s not how it works. It means that they could also hold the school board responsible for the teacher’s actions, not that the teacher is absolved of responsibility for her own actions. But the ACLU did not name the school board as a defendant, so it will not be held responsible (unless they later file another suit).
The teacher is very likely covered by the district’s insurance. She is being represented by a fancy lawyer. In any event, teachers, like most public employees, are protected by qualified immunity. This means they can only be found liable for conduct they knew or should have known was wrong. So it has to rise above the level of good faith mishandling.
There is no respondeat superior for constitutional violations. If this conduct was not pursuant to a policy or practice of the school, then there would be no basis on which to name the school as a defendant.
Not really. First, the existence of the concept heads off a lot of suits that might otherwise be brought. Lawyers aren’t going to take the case unless there’s a good shot at overcoming qualified immunity. And second, many qualified immunity decisions are made on a motion to dismiss. That’s not free, but in a case like this we’re talking about maybe $5,000. Third, defense costs are even more likely to be covered by the employer than judgment. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a case in which the district didn’t even cover defense costs.
The school says that the teacher was in the right and that there is more to the story. So let’s hear it. On the face of it, it’s a gross violation of the student’s freedom of religion. There had better be a lot more to the story in order for the school to not owe this family an armored truck full of cash.
I would have expected Fort Wayne City Schools to be quiet on this, but they are doubling down on the teacher. They found “no merit in the allegations.”
I suspect this particular statement will be questioned.
If the kid declared that not only is he an atheist but you’d have to be an idiot to believe in God, then some discipline was appropriate.
Caution is certainly warranted about allegations based on a small child’s recollection. But there are a few problems with this statement:
Once the administration was told what happened, they rolled over. That suggests the allegations aligned with what the teacher reported.
The line between political opinions (protected, even by 7-year-olds) and insults is grayer than you suggest. “You’d have to be an idiot to believe X” is right on the edge when expressed in the presence of someone who just finished saying he believed X. In an elementary school that’s probably enough, but I wouldn’t bet the farm that every federal court would agree.
Even if properly framed as an insult, it still wouldn’t be appropriate for the teacher to interrogate the child as to his religious beliefs, and for another teacher to tell the religious kid that he was right and the plaintiff was wrong (!).
I wouldn’t nominate that as a band name, but it does look like a good Album or Tour name.
Maybe the Travelling Willburies’ next opus?
No doubt, some Family Values Legal Defense group (or whatever those names tend to be) will step in and argue opposite the ACLU – either pro bono or with legal fees covered by a fund filled by Christian donors.
Without getting into the details of the kids’ interaction, I think it might have been a relatively appropriate decision to separate the two kids because, after all, one did somehow make the other cry. It might even be appropriate to say, “Class, leave Billy alone for the rest of the afternoon.” to make sure nobody is retaliating on behalf of the crying kid.
But THREE DAYS?!?!?
That’s no longer safeguarding the two kids, that’s excessively harsh.
And the kids are probably still good friends, despite the fact that the adult world is sharpening swords over the incident.
On the facts as presented (and since no one is suing the Washington Post for libel, I have to assume that they are substantially correct), the teacher is evil and should lose everything, IMHO. When I was in school 1000 years ago, teachers sent all disciplinary problems except the most minor to the principal. As a university professor, any serious problem had to be sent to the dean’s office.
On the facts as presented, I would have sued the principal too.
Incidentally, I had the choice in the OP between the Washington Post and a much more tendentious report and chose the less inflammatory.
I’m all for the suit, and wouldn’t experience too much heartburn if insurance didn’t cover whatever meager damages might be awarded.
But I wouldn’t even want to see her fired, much less ruined financially. She made a terrifically awful judgment call. But this is on the very minor end of the scale when it comes to these kinds of things.
Doesn’t seem like they’re rolling over and they clearly don’t think the teacher’s behavior matches the allegations. And if the kid did basically call someone an idiot (total speculation), it warrants discipline. School is not a court of law.
After-the-fact, maybe. But as outlined in the lawsuit, they revoked all the discipline once the parents complained.
As I said, certainly schools have the power to issue discipline for insults. But they are just as clearly barred from discipline for the expression of theological opinions. Your speculative framing (“Only an idiot would…”) is a good example of something that falls pretty neatly between the two principles. Your certainty that it is permissible to punish such speech is unwarranted, even if it is the likelier of two reasonably possible outcomes.
Yes, really. If she really did what is described, she abused her authority in order to punish a kid for not agreeing with her theology.
When what you are doing violates the supreme law of the land, violating the human and civil rights of the person in question, hell yes you should be fired.
I don’t understand why you are characterizing this as some small mistake that only deserves a small settlement. A teacher who thinks this sort of thing is okay is not fit to be in the classroom.
(Of course, they are contending that this is not what happened, and it is indeed so bad that I think there must be more to the story. But, the story as stated is one hell of a fireable offense.)
