Express Yourself

The editorial in the LA Times starts "This newspaper ardently supports the right to free speech, even when that speech is controversial, hateful or ignorant." Except when it's too controversial, hateful and ignorant.
They support the dismissal of Patricia McAllister, a substitute teacher whose ugly anti-Zionist views expressed at the Los Angeles anti-Wall Street protests got her fired.

...even if she's been the soul of discretion on the job, as well as kind and evenhanded with all her students, by making herself a public symbol of intolerance, McAllister no longer can serve effectively as a teacher.

So you're allowed to hold hateful views as long as you don't express them.

As execrable as her comments were, it might be a different matter if McAllister were, say, a Department of Motor Vehicles clerk. There, she would be dealing with adults who could hold their own, and would have little direct authority over them. It also might be different if she had expressed a controversial opinion that was not an inflammatory attack on a particular ethnic or religious group.

So people with controversial views can work with adults, but not kids. (Are kids more aware of these views than adults?) It seems to me as long as you keep the views out of your work, it's not the state's business what you say otherwise. Yes, it may disturb the community, but freedom of speech means nothing if it doesn't protect the unpopular.

And now the LA Times finds some inflammatory speech is acceptable?  So if she had only said bankers shouldn't be allowed to marry. Or marijuana should be legalized.  Or abortion doctors should go to jail.  Or punishment for child pornography should be lightened. Or hundreds of other things where the LA Times is apparently willing to look the other way.

Only ethnic or religious attacks rise to the level of a firing offense.  Really what the Times is saying is everyday "controversial" speech is no big deal, only speech that the times (and the Times) finds deeply offensive shouldn't be protected.  Years ago, supporting communism would have been considered offensive, and likely gotten you fired (while supporting segregation might not), but no longer, I guess.  Presumably, the Times back then would have editorialized "hey, we like free speech, but not for communists."

We're reluctant to restrict anyone's ability to express even the most loathsome views openly and publicly. But when a teacher trumpets hateful opinions that could intimidate the impressionable young people she's supposed to be serving, that's not just free speech — it's a performance issue. In speaking out so intemperately, McAllister's ability to do her job was fatally compromised.

How does it change her performance?  Either you do your job properly or not. The government shouldn't be in the business of measuring how offensive you are in your free time. If those views get in the way of how you do your job (whether you work with kids or adults), that's when they should take action.

I don't know if kids will be intimidated by a teacher who does her job.  But I know now that teachers who believe they have radical views should feel intimidated.  I have no doubt plenty of teachers hold views that, if known, could make their charges feels uncomfortable.  That bankers have screwed up the country and deserve to go to jail.  That Republicans are nasty and don't care if schools fail.  That everyone should become Christian.  That males oppress females.  That Hollywood is a purveyor of filth and people who work in that industry are destroying children.  That Scientology is the way to go.  But now they know to stay tight-lipped. Don't protest in public, don't write letters to the editor, don't leave signed comments on blogs.  Because you never know who'll be watching.