WE HAVE TO DO WHAT IS RIGHT FOR OUR STUDENTS

I had a great interview with Liz Matt last week. She does video activism. We discussed a lot of things, but this was her target takeaway from the discussion. The takeaway is this…teachers can resist these medieval laws by simply refusing to participate. This only works, however, if teachers act collectively. These laws force teachers to become insular and “protect our own”. That’s how fascism creeps in. The fascists put citizens in a position in which they feel they have to choose between doing what is right according to their conscience, and protecting what they have and those they love. It’s an insidious process that only works when people feel like they are on their own.

The teaching environment often works to make teachers feel insular, especially in the Free State. Teachers are isolated in their classrooms. Those times that they do get to collaborate are strictly regulated by the administration, focused on data and raising test scores. But teachers are not on their own. In fact, as it stands in the Free State, teachers have a great deal of potential power if they act together. If teachers organize and act collectively by simply refusing to deny a student access to books, or refusing to dehumanize their gender non-conforming students, there’s nothing the district can do about it. The teacher does not have to openly flout the rules and be blatantly insubordinate. They can simply refuse to obey.

This sounds radical, but it is perfectly within the bounds of existing law as of the Supreme Court’s 303 Creative v. Elenis ruling (hailed by conservatives, by the way). In the majority opinion, Neil Gorsuch wrote that, “the government cannot compel a person to speak its own preferred messages.”

Now, you will hear from the district, as I have, that this ruling does not apply to schoolteachers. That’s hard to sustain in light of the ruling. To support this claim, Gorsuch cited Tinker v. Des Moines…a landmark ruling about free speech in public schools. In the majority opinion for Tinker, Justice Abe Fortas wrote the famous line, “It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” So, those teachers who are ethically averse to breaking the law can be assured that they are not doing so.