A New Jersey teacher was accused of bringing politics into the classroom in the form of an anti-Trump t-shirt. While the legality of the matter is up to the courts, this situation does raise an interesting moral problem about the free speech of public educators. As a professor at a state university, I am both an educator and a public employee, so this matter is relevant to me.
One aspect of the moral concern is that the educator is a public employee and thus paid by the taxpayers and working in a public institution. While being employed by the state does not strip a person of their right to free expression, there are limits to this right. The most common example of a limit is, of course, about yelling fire in a theater when there is no fire.
Since public employees are paid by the taxpayers to do a job, it makes sense that they do not have the right to express their own political views to the public while on the clock. To use the obvious analogy, it would be absurd to claim that I have the right to try to sell my students my books during class time or office hours. Likewise, it would be absurd to say that I have the right to try to sell my politics to my students during class time or office hours. There is also the matter of professionalism—while I am on the clock, I am representing my institution and not myself. As such, I am obligated to distinguish between my own views and those of the institution.
It might be objected that elected public officials routinely use their offices to engage in political activities that benefit themselves and their party. As such, it is unfair to deny the same opportunity to other public employees. One obvious counter is that elected public officials are politicians, so politics is their job. That said, there are certainly moral concerns about politicians using public resources to campaign for their re-election or the elections of others; but this is more a matter of the use of public funds than a free-speech issue. As such, it seems morally acceptable to insist that public employees who do not hold political office, etc. to refrain from political activities while on the clock. But perhaps being an educator makes a difference.
On the one hand, it could be argued that even in political classes the educator does not have the right to preach their own politics to the students. After all, the function of the educator is to teach rather than preach. If a teacher takes a clear stance on a political issue, then students are pressured to accept (or at least act as if they accept) that view—especially if it somehow makes it into the grading process. There is also the concern that expressing political views will alienate students and thus harm their education. For example, a teacher who expresses anti-Trump views strongly in class, can create a hostile learning environment for students who like Trump (or simply dislike having their class politicized). The teacher has plenty of time outside of the classroom to express their views to people who are free to ignore them or speak back as equals; using class time to engage in politics would thus be wrong.
On the other hand, it can be argued that educators do not surrender their right of free expression and if they use it responsibly in the classroom, they have the right to express their political views. This view does have considerable appeal at the college level—professors are supposed to have positions on intellectual and academic issues, and these include political issues. This does become a matter of teaching/educational philosophy. One classic ideal is the professor as professor—advancing their positions on the academic issues and inviting students to engage them. Of course, this does involve the obvious problem with the power disparity and grades. Another classic ideal is the professor as neutral shoveler of theories and ideas—laying out all the various positions and letting the students decide which they like best. One problem with this is that such an approach does not help the students determine which theories and ideas are better—which would be an obvious problem in the context of engineering, math and science classes in which it is often assumed there must be a right answer that the professor is to convey to the students. This, of course, leads into the jungle of the dispute over which subjects are objective and which are not—a jungle far beyond the itinerary of this brief essay.
My practical solution to the problem in my own classes is to avoid endorsing/condemning any candidate (and not just because this would probably get me fired) and to stick to the general issues of politics. Since I do not want my students to simply repeat what they think I think on papers and tests, I am careful to present the positions fairly. If pressed for my opinion in class, I will refer to any writings I have done on the issues and note that they should not simply accept what I say. I also carefully point out that paper grades are not based on whether I like their position or not but based on how well they argue for their position. When I use examples of politicians (usually for fallacies and rhetoric) I do try to include examples across the spectrum. However, the party in power does tend to be the subject of more examples than the party out of power—which is to be expected.
To me, this kind of question has a pretty simple answer, which applies in this and a broad range of examples.
The first amendment guarantees us the right to free speech, and the right to express our opinions without fear of prosecution – but nowhere does it say anything about guaranteeing a forum, a platform, a location, a time, or a place to exercise this freedom. Nor does it in any way obligate any person or entity to provide such a forum.
Further, issues like this one usually arise when the rights of one person or entity collide with the rights of another, and a call must be made as to how to reconcile that conflict.
In the case of the Roxbury High School teacher and the anti-Trump T-Shirt, the answer seems pretty obvious to me. By placing the T-shirt and its message in the classroom, the teacher is creating a disruptive, if not hostile, environment which infringes upon the rights of the students to receive the education that the taxpayers are funding.
As you and some of the parents point out, it would be a different story if the T-shirt were used in some kind of education context, along with an image bearing the opposite sentiment – intended to spark political debate, but that’s not the case here.
No one is telling the teacher that he cannot voice his opinions, but they are telling him that the high-school classroom is neither the time nor the place.
I am (theoretically) free to express my opinions without fear of redress – but if I stand in the middle of Main Street during rush hour and make a speech, there will be some repercussions. There’s a time and a place, and Main Street during rush hour is neither. My exercise of my right to voice my opinion is, in that situation, in conflict with the rights of taxpaying citizens to use the roads they paid for in the manner in which they were intended.
Could he, or should he be fired? The first amendment would say that he cannot be fired for holding or even voicing his opinions – he can post them on Facebook, he can stand on the streetcorner or shout them from the rooftops, but the content of his message can never be grounds for dismissal.
However, the manner and intent of his message, and even the result possibly could be. If his actions created a hostile work environment or one that made education difficult or impossible, then that’s a different story. At least for me – but I’m not an attorney, nor am I a constitutional scholar.
A similar First Amendment argument arose recently when a custom bake shop refused to bake a wedding cake celebrating their union. These cases come up all the time – and what I remember about this one was the “reasonable accommodation” principle. I really don’t remember how it turned out, but the argument in question was about whether there was another place this couple could go to get a similar cake of equal quality.
Same in this case, the way I see it – that there is plenty of “reasonable accommodation” for the teacher to express his political views outside the classroom, so he is not being repressed.
Nor is he being judged on the actual content of his views; the position taken by the school is that any political statement or other potentially divisive or disruptive behavior has no place in the classroom.
I suspect that if the T-shirt had held the opposite sentiment the same situation would have arisen. (Actually, I think there might have been a stoning … )
This is not a situation I’m unfamiliar with. During the Bush administration, I taught as an adjunct in a private NYC art school (this is not the UAW story I’ve told before). The office staff of the department chair were all pretty liberal, and had the front office decorated with some pretty strong anti-Bush posters (one showed a picture of GWB with flames shooting out of his pants – i.e., “Liar, liar, pants-on-fire”.)
I disagreed with the message of these posters, but felt somewhat powerless about addressing them. Oh, I’m sure I could have – and I could have had them taken down, probably, but that could very easily have set up a politically adversarial environment that might have descended into downright hostility. Knowing that my politics were very much in the minority at this institution, I followed the safe path of keeping my opinions out of the work place – and would have been very happy if that were a policy that were enforced from the top down, without requiring me to have to “take a stand”, compromising my pedagogical obligations.
Of course, my issue had nothing to do with the staff holding these positions – only that the “in your face” expression of them, every time I walked into the office was inapproptiate. It was disruptive, divisive, and bordering on a sort of “I dare you” hostility.
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