# Firing Upheld of middle school science teacher / former porn star **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 16, 2013, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-upheld-of-middle-school-science-teacher-former-porn-star/647410 "2013-01-16T18:48:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Robb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@Robb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robb)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-upheld-of-middle-school-science-teacher-former-porn-star/647410/101 "2013-01-17T02:58:52Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Yes. > > Except that she was, in fact, a teacher. > > “Halas was in porn scenes shot between December 2005 and August 2006, and during that time also served as a student teacher at elementary campuses in two other school districts, the commission found.” Excellent. So much for wonder. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-upheld-of-middle-school-science-teacher-former-porn-star/647410/102 "2013-01-17T03:14:30Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Yes, she debased herself. A porn star is an immoral objectification of a person and It’s now a matter of public record that kids can pull up on their phones. On top of that she has created a permanent and rather large distraction in class. I’m relatively confident you understand this. I do not at all understand that she debased herself. She did porn. Marisa Tomei did a naked doggie style scene in a movie with Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Did she debase herself? Did Hoffman debase himself? The distraction thing strikes me as a ginned-up excuse for the bad morality that really forms the objection to her teaching. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-upheld-of-middle-school-science-teacher-former-porn-star/647410/103 "2013-01-17T03:15:55Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > The OP certainly does: the dishonesty shown by Ms. Halas after her second career came to light. Perhaps she was simply trying to protect herself from ignorance and bigotry. ---
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-upheld-of-middle-school-science-teacher-former-porn-star/647410/104 "2013-01-17T03:23:05Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Perhaps she was simply trying to protect herself from ignorance and bigotry. It’s hard to occupy the high ground if it’s predicated on dishonesty. It’s also hard to argue that you lied only to avoid “ignorance and bigotry” while contemporaneously blabbing about your teaching career during a porno interview—remarks guaranteed to get far more prominence than anything said on a job application. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-upheld-of-middle-school-science-teacher-former-porn-star/647410/105 "2013-01-17T03:25:24Z")
> [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](#): > > Why are you in any position to tell the people of Oxnard what they should and should not be offended by? Do you pay taxes to the Oxnard school district? Do you live there? Have you ever visited there? > > Seriously, I am genuinely curious, why should they give a sliver of a fig about what you think about their sensibilities? And why should we support your mission to throw your weight around the Oxnard School Board? For the same reason people in the North got all up in the faces of people in the South over that whole slavery thing, even though they didn’t have slaves and didn’t live in the South. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-upheld-of-middle-school-science-teacher-former-porn-star/647410/106 "2013-01-17T03:28:08Z")
> [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](#): > > It’s hard to occupy the high ground if it’s predicated on dishonesty. It’s also hard to argue that you lied only to avoid “ignorance and bigotry” while contemporaneously blabbing about your teaching career during a porno interview—remarks guaranteed to get far more prominence than anything said on a job application. You are merely saying she was not smart about how she protected herself from ignorance and bigotry. And in a society as full of ignorance and bigotry as ours, you have to take measure to protect yourself. A man may live among tigers and have his own sense of himself as a human being who should not be killed an eaten, but he better take steps to protect himself from the tigers, however crude the methods might be. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-upheld-of-middle-school-science-teacher-former-porn-star/647410/107 "2013-01-17T03:31:13Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > I do not at all understand that she debased herself. She did porn. Marisa Tomei did a naked doggie style scene in a movie with Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Did she debase herself? Did Hoffman debase himself? > > The distraction thing strikes me as a ginned-up excuse for the bad morality that really forms the objection to her teaching. Are you really comparing acting in a movie to having sex with strangers on camera? Really? I am not saying what happened to her is particularly fair, but there is no reason to make such asinine comparisons. The reality is that decisions have consequences, and if you decide to blow people on film for money, there are gonna be some jobs you can’t get, and some people who are gonna judge you. That’s the reality of it, and whine about it after the fact as if any reasonably intelligent wouldn’t have foreseen it, is just stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-upheld-of-middle-school-science-teacher-former-porn-star/647410/108 "2013-01-17T03:38:53Z")
She shouldn’t have been fired for doing porn. However, if one is going to attempt to pursue both porn and teaching, a certain measure of discretion is called for. She showed a phenomenal lack of such discretion when she admitted, on camera and in her porn persona, that she was a teacher. And, as tends to happen, that indiscretion came to light. And for that, firing her is reasonable. ---
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-upheld-of-middle-school-science-teacher-former-porn-star/647410/109 "2013-01-17T04:04:17Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > For the same reason people in the North got all up in the faces of people in the South over that whole slavery thing, even though they didn’t have slaves and didn’t live in the South. I see, so she was getting her Harriet Beecher Stowe on during this porno interview? But a Harriet Beecher Stowe who was also a slave? But a slave Harriet Beecher Stowe who didn’t write a narrative about the horrors of slavery but instead wrote “LOL! Masser would be so pissed if he knew I were writing this novel. J/k!!” A slave Harriet Beecher Stowe who also told her master that she was not a slave? (Wait, what? Maybe she turns into Sojourner Truth at this point? Or a tiger? Sure, I’ll go with it.) Yes, it is abundantly clear now: I don’t know how I overlooked these brazenly obvious parallels. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-upheld-of-middle-school-science-teacher-former-porn-star/647410/110 "2013-01-17T04:12:05Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > She shouldn’t have been fired for doing porn. However, if one is going to attempt to pursue both porn and teaching, a certain measure of discretion is called for. She showed a phenomenal lack of such discretion when she admitted, on camera and in her porn persona, that she was a teacher. And, as tends to happen, that indiscretion came to light. And for that, firing her is reasonable. So lack of discretion is sufficient legal grounds for unilaterally terminating a job contract? ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-upheld-of-middle-school-science-teacher-former-porn-star/647410/111 "2013-01-17T04:22:55Z")
[QUOTE[\*=Inner Stickler;15906180] What pathetic behavior on the part of the school. [/QUOTE] Correct. This time **Bricker** and I disagree. I see no evidence that she can not continue teaching effectively. After a few days the issue would blow over and the kids would find something else to distract them. ---
**Author:** ![Robb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@Robb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robb)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-upheld-of-middle-school-science-teacher-former-porn-star/647410/112 "2013-01-17T04:24:37Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Yes. > > Except that she was, in fact, a teacher. > > “Halas was in porn scenes shot between December 2005 and August 2006, and during that time also served as a student teacher at elementary campuses in two other school districts, the commission found.” It turns out that she and her attorney were trying to make a distinction without a difference. She wasn’t a [“paid certified teacher”](http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2013/01/stacie_halas_porn_appeal_rejec.php?page=2) (paragraph 21(c)) at the time she did porn, but she was working in other teaching capacities. Paragraph 27 lists her likely teaching positions while still filming porn. It looks like Halas repeatedly lied about her involvement in porn, but the students at her middle school kept insisting they were watching her porn videos. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-upheld-of-middle-school-science-teacher-former-porn-star/647410/113 "2013-01-17T04:26:57Z")
But don’t worry. Now that she’s been fired I’m sure none of those students will ever have any reason to watch porn again. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-upheld-of-middle-school-science-teacher-former-porn-star/647410/114 "2013-01-17T05:05:49Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > If it’s moral and a good way to make money then you wouldn’t object to teaching it as a vocational trade in high school. What, push the kids toward a career in show business? I dunno, better they have something more reliable to fall back on, like accounting or welding. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-upheld-of-middle-school-science-teacher-former-porn-star/647410/115 "2013-01-17T06:01:40Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > Correct. This time **Bricker** and I disagree. I see no evidence that she can not continue teaching effectively. After a few days the issue would blow over and the kids would find something else to distract them. not in a thousand years would they forgot about it. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-upheld-of-middle-school-science-teacher-former-porn-star/647410/116 "2013-01-17T06:05:48Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > > [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > > > What pathetic behavior on the part of the school. > > Correct. This time **Bricker** and I disagree. I see no evidence that she can not continue teaching effectively. After a few days the issue would blow over and the kids would find something else to distract them. How about the repeated lies, to her principal, her superintendent, and to the hearing board in violation of the Education Code of California § 44932(a)(3)? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-upheld-of-middle-school-science-teacher-former-porn-star/647410/117 "2013-01-17T06:25:56Z")
Did she lie about her abilities to teach? ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-upheld-of-middle-school-science-teacher-former-porn-star/647410/118 "2013-01-17T07:14:00Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > I do not at all understand that she debased herself. She did porn. Have you seen porn? ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-upheld-of-middle-school-science-teacher-former-porn-star/647410/119 "2013-01-17T12:07:20Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Did she lie about her abilities to teach? Her ability to control the classroom would be significantly reduced. This whole story reminds me of an old Photoshop teacher I had in night school, that I have mentioned here before. It turns out he was a Holocaust Denier that took leave at the end of one of my courses (missing the last two lessons) so he could give a presentation at a Holocaust Denial conference in Iran. After that he had lost the respect of everyone he would teach and as such he would have struggled to maintain authority. The problem is, Holocaust Denial isn’t against the law (like how her being in porn isn’t). He couldn’t be fired but also couldn’t teach (for the above reason but also things like the chances of protests, possibility that people would not sign up for courses because he was teaching them etc etc). In the end the unions had to come to an agreement with him and the school regarding a pay off. That’s the only real difference between the story and mine. Sweden doesn’t have concepts like “at will” employment. I change job next week and have had to see out a three month notice period. Article about the lovely Jan Bernhoff, Holocaust Denier by day, Photoshop teacher by night: [http://www.thelocal.se/5797/20061214/#.UPfpTW-7MwE](http://www.thelocal.se/5797/20061214/#.UPfpTW-7MwE) ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-upheld-of-middle-school-science-teacher-former-porn-star/647410/120 "2013-01-17T12:16:53Z")
> [@amanset](#): > > Her ability to control the classroom would be significantly reduced. I realize that’s the general assumption. Was it actually tested? Your Holocaust Denier example at least got a chance to experience student reactions, and I presume for some time, and was teaching a class to adults who could choose not to register in a section he was teaching. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-upheld-of-middle-school-science-teacher-former-porn-star/647410.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-upheld-of-middle-school-science-teacher-former-porn-star/647410.md?page=7)