In the past it was commonly believed “that public employees, which includes teachers, had a limited right to freedom of expression.” (183) However after the heightened awareness paid to civil rig

This case can be examined from two standpoints: a teacher’s right to freedom of expression as guaranteed by the First Amendment, and teacher as exemplar. On the First Amendment side the cases that would seem to apply are Pickering v. Board of Education and Connick v. Myers, and on teacher as exemplar, Gaylord v. Tacoma School District and Erb v. Iowa State Board of Public Instruction.

As the Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Instruction, I have been asked by a

Matt Scarlett is a second year music teacher and band director at a suburban high school. The school is located in an affluent upper middle class area, 40 miles east of New York City. The majority of residents in this school district are registered Republicans. In each of the last 6 presidential elections the Republican candidate has garnered the most votes even when the Democratic candidate eventually won the presidential election. The residents of the district are predominantly business people with positions in the upper echelons of the corporate community and as a whole tend to hold conservative traditional views.

hts in the 1960’s, and a more receptive federal judiciary, this belief changed. In 1892, in a decision written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, the Supreme Court took the stand that it could use a public employee’s speech as grounds for dismissal. This decision became known as the right/privilege distinction. This right/privilege distinction was upheld as late as 1952 when in Adler v. Board of Education the Court stated, "[public employees] have a constitutional right to say and think as [they] will, but [they] have no constitutional right to work for the government." However, in 1967 the Court changed its view, asserting that the Court can not do indirectly that which it can not do directly. The Court took the position that public employment cannot be conditioned on a surrender of constitutional rights. The problem for the Court then became how to balance the government's interest in maintaining an efficient public workplace against the individual employee's interest in free expression. In Pickering v. the Board of Education (1968) Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote the decision that “a teacher’s exercise of his right to speak on issues of public importance may not furnish the basis for his dismissal from public employment.” (188)

Most high school students have access to far more objectionable material than is contained on Mr. Scarlett’s website.

Some topics in this essay:
Connick Myers, Carriero June, Judge Moore, South Park, Director Music, Law Concepts, York City, Education Court, Secondary Instruction, Legal Analysis/Conclusion, school district, teacher exemplar, free speech, connick myers, board education, scarlett’s website, pickering board education, digital world, dismiss scarlett, 3 school, public employees, teacher exemplar amendment, 3 school district,