Gay-themed film cost Oklahoma teacher her job

[meegbear]

Gay rights groups are complaining about the firing of a rural Oklahoma high school teacher who lost her job last week after assigning a play about the 1998 death of a gay college student. But the tiny school district says the move came after the teacher held a mock "funeral" for a canceled film production of the play.

The episode began in January, when Debra Taylor showed students at Grandfield High School The Laramie Project, a 2002 film based on the play of the same name, about the murder of Matthew Shepard. The students soon decided to film selected scenes themselves for an in-class project.

Taylor, 50, knew the project was controversial with strong language, but got her principal's permission. A few weeks into it, the principal told her to stop production. After students protested, she held a 20-minute ceremony in a nearby park in which students wrote their thoughts and rolled them into helium balloons, then released them.

The next day, Taylor says, Superintendent Ed Turlington canceled the class. After she complained to a school board member, Turlington put her on paid leave and recommended that she be fired. The school board approved her resignation Friday.

Taylor says she was let go for complaining to the board member, but others say it was a result of the play's subject: homophobia. "They don't want something like this addressed in our community," says senior Matt Ebner, one of Taylor's former students.

<snip>

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-03-16-teacher-laramie_N.htm

[MADem]

1. The first one who should be fired is the PRINCIPAL. And the Superintendent, as well.

First, for giving permission for a project that the community couldn't "handle," be it for the subject matter or the strong language, and second, for rescinding that permission.

That's just pisspoor leadership.

The Superintendent cancelling the class, well, that's just asinine. And then FIRING the teacher? That's INSANE.

She needs to sue, and hit the talk show circuit, and make sure that Turlington is spelled M-U-D in that town for many years to come.

[baldguy]

2. Everyone in GD who wonder why teachers need tenure & union protections should read this.

[Fearless]

4. Exactly!

[saltpoint]

3. In 50 years those students, as older adults, will recall this spring in

their schooling.

In my opinion they will remember their teacher in decidedly fond terms.

[RetiredTrotskyite]

5. Man, That SUCKS, meegbear!

I would have taken the case to the ACLU myself. Damned fundie asshats in power in so much of thid country. I wish this teacher the best.

[Smarmie Doofus]

6. I stole this and posted to GD last nite.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5283813

Hope you don't mind. Teachers have been getting bashed over tenure and merit pay by so-called progressives since Obama came out as an educational... ummm... "reformer".

Hard to understand what some of theses goomers are doing on this site. Anyway, some interesting commentary ensued.

If "gay" is the new "black", is "teacher" the new "gay" ?

[roughsatori]

7. There was a time when I would've gone to the school and vandalized.

Yes, I was a gay trouble maker. The kind everyone hates for making "gays look bad." The kind that threw the first brick at the stonewall riots. I am not brave enough to be a pacifist. But have found religion and now see civil-disobedience in the MLK tradition as more productive. I still promote the "armed gays don't get bashed" theory of proper gun ownership. I write letters now. It seems rather lame...but who knows?

Thank you for posting that.