Anti-Gay Teacher Firing Ignites Intense School Board Battle

(NBC)

Vicki Knox, the Union Township high school teacher who ignited a serious firestorm over the anti-gay messages she allegedly posted all over her school's Facebook, is at the center of an increasingly intense School Board battle over whether or not she should be allowed to keep her job. And while Knox herself has yet to publicly comment on the issue, pretty much everyone else is.

“Everybody’s entitled to an opinion,” Vicki's husband Gene Knox told CBS, citing his wife’s freedom of speech. “They can persecute her, but they can’t prosecute her.” “Homosexuality is a perverted spirit……..I know sin and it breeds like cancer!” Knox posted on Facebook, in reaction to her school's LGBT pride month display. “Why parade your unnatural immoral behaviors before the rest of us? YOU ARE WRONG.” The page has since been taken down, but Garden State Equality, a gay rights group, has posted a PDF of the comments here.

A rally was held last night outside of the school board meeting in Union Township, with gay rights supporters holding signs reading "No Hate In Our State" and declaring that “students have rights," too. “Bigotry and prejudice can’t be taught to the kids. We’re looking at children committing suicide over this,” one man said. One student told NBC, "[Knox is] my in-class support teacher, and she switched me with another student. I did nothing wrong. I found out from another student she did this to gays, lesbians and bisexuals."

Of course, there were some Knox supporters, too, like the ACLU, who is defending her right to free speech, and Pastor Paul Simpson, who said "She speaks in Biblical values and we stand with her in solidarity." Officials from gay rights groups said that although Knox's comments are protected under the First Amendment, she has a responsibility as a teacher to be a role model for students. Knox is currently out of the classroom and on paid administrative leave while the school board continues their investigation into the matter.

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By Jamie Feldmar in News on October 19, 2011 1:50 PM

Comments [rss]

OrangeCountyCalifornia

Black people are so stupid when they wrap themselves around religion. They're even more stupid when they make homophobic remarks. I sympathize with people who feel black churches deserve to be burned down. Black people hate gay people yet they get oh so uppity when other people wish they would shut up about slavery.

SHERRI

Vicki needs to read the ENTIRE bible!! Even the parts about how SLAVERY is Ok & how to keep & treat & beat your slave. Don't pick & choose the parts of the bible YOU LIKE Vicki.. if you're going to live by the bible, live by ALL of it, chains & all.

Robbert Bricker

i guess if you are an anti-gay teacher, you have some wiggle room.... but if you are an anti-semitic teacher... you get fired.

http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2...

and is it me or is there just a whole bunch of black folks out there really expressing their discriminatory views? i mean, is the former oppressed trying to now be the oppressors?

ug... humans are so unbelievably stupid sometimes.

JeffreyM

Take a look at the times in the PDF. Wednesday at 12:46pm. That's school time, not personal time. Last time I looked she had a class to teach during the day, rather than spouting off on FB.

xxGoBolts55xx

OR it was lunch time or prep time where you can do AS YOU PLEASE... We do live in the USA don't we?

Kristina_S2

wow seeing the media in action first-hand is amazing.

delicats

Yeah, get her out.

xxGoBolts55xx

lol--- muscle-head response-- free speech be damned

caroline

Even if you want to take the ACLU's line on this (that she should not be punished for what she says out of the classroom), if what that one student said is true (that Ms. Knox refused to serve as her in-class support teacher because she is LGBT) the school district should have sufficient grounds to fire her.

EdwardAmame

That's different.

Guest

Listen. For every person scoffing her there is a Bible toter applauding her. That is what keeps her moving and not feeling the true sting of what she has said and done. I'm fully against any Christian who wants to verbally rape the masses with their biblical bigotry but I'm satisfied with her ass being in a sling. A cautionary take to anyone connected to her or to their televisions or newspapers: your Bible is powerful? It'd at least make the rest of us agree and adhere to everything in it. Looks as not.

EdwardAmame

I don't like what she said, but am a little queasy about people getting the boot from employers for stuff posted on Facebook while not at work/working.

JeffreyM

The times on the PDF said Wednesday 12:46pm. That's school time, and she should be working..

bassoonalex

But if you look at the PDF, she talks about the school itself and posts a picture of something in it. It's fine to talk shit on your own facebook page (at your own risk of future employers seeing it, of course), but when you bring into the public eye your place of employment and criticizing it, your employers have every right to take action against you because it is THEIR reputation on the line as well.

This would all have been different if she hadn't listed A) which school she was employed by B) posted a picture of said school with a mention of which school it was and C) made it available for all to see.

And no, I don't think she should be allowed to teach in a public school if her beliefs are affecting her job, and in this case, I think they are. I wouldn't want to be a gay student in her classroom knowing that she felt this way.

Colonel_Ingus

Go read her screed on the pdf link. She's not even literate. I don't care what subject she teaches. If you're not literate, you're not teaching my kid.

facted

There is no place for hate in classrooms.

xxGoBolts55xx

There was NO hate in the classroom--- just free speech on the INTERNET

RobertMosesSupposesErroneously

Get her out. Free speech is free speech, but hate speech does not belong in the classroom. Even if she kept her ignorant rants to her own private page (and it sounds like they were actually pretty public) - imagine if a bullied gay teen, on the verge of suicide, came to her for support and advice.

As an African-American who looks like she grew up in the 60's, Knox needs to look back to her own schoolgirl days and imagine how she would have felt if an openly ranting Klansman worked at her school. Would she have been perfectly ok with him, in the name of free speech? I doubt it.

xxGoBolts55xx

RobertMoses--- there was NO hate speech in the classroom--- the statements-- which were NOT hate were on FACEBOOK-- on her private page... She bullied NO ONE, by the way.

TheOtherBob

I think that's the right way to look at this
.
Suppose, for example, that a teacher were a card-carrying member of the KKK. Every morning, he'd get up with a freshly-made sign saying something like "N---er Love is Sin" or "N---ers Go Home," and stand just off school property holding it up while each teacher and student arrived. He'd then take off his robe, walk onto campus, and be...at least professional with black teachers and students. (Though there would of course be rumors (and some evidence) that he might be treating black kids more harshly than white kids.)

Would there by legal and/or moral right to shitcan his ass? Yes. Morally, there's no question -- no one who hates based on race, religion, etc. has any business teaching students. Education is about growing young minds -- it requires a strong sense of caring and respect for the students in your care. If you'd kinda like to see some of those young minds shipped back to Africa, you have no moral place in the profession.

But I think you'd be on strong legal grounds as well. Remember, teaching is a job. And while I, too, worry about the ability of an employer to limit free speech by firing you for things they don't like, (a) that's how at-will employment works in every other field, and (b) well...if you're a card-carrying member of the KKK, and some of your students are black, you cannot really be expected to be able to do your job. Even if your technical on-campus performance is ideal...these kids know who you are. If you think even one black kid is going to listen to the guy who just called him a n---er, you've never met a human being before. And so we'd have to find you a class of all-white, aryan kids...and that's just not happening.

Similarly, here we have a teacher that is explicit about her hatred of some of her students. She therefore has no business being a teacher, morally. And because she cannot reasonably do her job, given that she would have to teach students who she believes are less-than-fully-human, there is a strong legal basis to fire her -- even if her hatred is only fully expressed off-campus.