"Uhhh..... yeaaaaah"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/19/patricia-mcallister-fired_n_1020252.html
109 countries!!??! And she's a teacher??
Which raises the point: Should she have been fired for voicing her bigoted opinion-not in a classroom, but in an outside protest? This is a close call. She did identify herself as an employee of the USUSD, but spoke as a private individual. No question that her statements were outrageous, and if made in a classroom, she definitely should have been terminated in my view.
One factor is that she is a substitute teacher, which, I presume means she does not have the benefit of a contract with all those protection rights. Thus, they simply don't have to give her a call when they need a sub. It's kind of like me. I am a part-time teacher at UC Irvine. My contract is by the quarter. UCI doesn't have to offer me a class next quarter if they decide they don't want me around. As I have said many times, I don't take my opinions into the classroom. Some say I have said certain things on this blog that are offensive. One reader stopped visiting this site because he perceived I was homophobic. (I disagree.) Some may think I am against Muslims as people. (I disagree.) I know that I have never said that any ethnic or religious group should be run out of this country.
Anyway, as to Ms McAllister, it's possibly going to be an issue that will be decided in court although I don't know what recourse a substitute teacher has. I do know one thing, however. LAUSD is absolutely correct in getting rid of a teacher who is so demonstrably.....
STOOPID.
"Uhhhh....yeaaaaah."
Yeah!
First of all, those Jews on Wall Street are Americans-just as are the Gentiles on Wall Street. Ms McAllister, as an African-American, should know better. How would she feel if some yahoo protester said on TV that African-Americans should be run out of this country?
No wonder the LAUSD is in such sorry shape.
Findalis,
ReplyDeleteYou are correct. What she said (twice) is pure unadulterated hate speech. She has the constitutional right to say it. She should not be arrested, but she should be held up to public condemnation for it.
And you know what? Not one Tea Party member I am aware of has said something like this.
She was hired as at will employee. They could let her go for pretty much any reason they wanted under those terms. She clearly is a bigot and has repeatedly said that she thinks Jews should be run out of the country. They should have let her go and did. She doesn't have a case for wrongful termination.
ReplyDeleteI watched the second video on youtube and the comments on there were worse than her. There are a lot of people who are serious bigots out there.
The Occupy movement has easily identifiable and all too frequent anti-Semitic strains. None of that was in the Tea Party. Not any! I've been to Tea Party rallies, get their emails, belong to allied organizations, and know many of them personally. There has never been a hint of it. I don't know any Tea Party member or ever heard of one who was not supportive of our ally, Israel.
ReplyDeleteNot one Tea Party member ever said anything like what this teacher said to my knowledge. None of the Tea Party members were ever arrested either. None of them were ever even accused of rape at a Tea Party. There are at least 700 or more arrests of Occupy Wall Streeters and at least one rape allegation.
Comparing the Tea Party to the Occupiers is like comparing the medicinal value of penicillin to the medicinal value of bullshit.
.
That is true Anonymous. With the OWS movement one sees hatred on a scale that astonishes me. I never saw any hatred with the TEA Party, in fact the opposite.
ReplyDeleteOf course she was wrong. This nonsense about Jewish Plutocrats is just a cover that the real bourgeoisie uses to deflect the working class from identifying the true source of their oppression.
ReplyDeleteRight Findalis?
Basically, Gary has this down about right. I already said this nut case is obviously incompetent to teach anything. Well, you could teach 2 + 2 = 4 while believing that Zionist Jews control Wall Street. But, like Findalis says, could she teach Jewish children on the same basis as all others? Last I heard, there is a significant Jewish population in Los Angeles.
On the other hand, most of us, including me, oppose firing teachers who say, on their own time, out of school, that they believe God has a problem with homosexuality. Are we all able to articulate how that is different?
And we don't want them hung, right Gary? I mean, I don't, and you don't approve of it in Iran, so I infer you wouldn't advocate it in America either.
See how complicated the world really is? Who said it could be kept simple?
Siarlys:
ReplyDeleteA teacher who says he or she doesn't approve of homosexuality on his own time is exercising his or her freedom of speech.
A teacher who says the above and adds that all homosexuals should be hung for the 'sin", is committing a hate crime and should be fired for it.
The difference is very big.
BTW: I have gay friends and relative of whom I love very much.
Not bad Findalis. Not bad at all.
ReplyDeleteI guess McAllister could have said "Zionist Jews are running the banks" on her own time, and kept her job, but saying they should be "run out of the country" went over the line.
I'm not sure Chief Justice Roberts would find that quite the line the First Amendment draws, but its a reasonably consistent position. I wouldn't object.