The Five Freedoms Project

You Be The Judge

Test your knowledge of the Five Freedoms and see how you match up to the courts...and fellow citizens.

November 1–15, 2008

Teacher Rights

In September, 2008, the leader of a city teacher union sent an email to all union members, advising them how to distribute campaign materials on behalf of the union’s preferred presidential candidate, Barack Obama.

In response, the city’s Department of Education sent a memo to principals directing them to enforce a longstanding regulation that requires that all school staff members show “complete neutrality” while on duty. The policy also prohibits teachers from using school property to promote a candidate.

The union filed a federal lawsuit, claiming that a policy banning political pins and signs in schools violates teachers’ First Amendment rights by blocking them from political expression.

Should teachers be allowed to advocate for political candidates in their classrooms?

Vote Now!

  • 33%
    A. YES
    The First Amendment protects the rights of all citizens to express themselves on matters of conscience. These forms of political expression by teachers have the added benefit of letting them impart to their students the importance of democracy, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.
  • 36%
    B. NO
    The First Amendment requires teachers, as public employees, to remain neutral about politics while on duty, in order to avoid any sense of pressure among students to echo the views of their teachers.
  • 31%
    C. NO
    Although teachers maintain their First Amendment rights as private citizens, they surrender those rights at the schoolhouse gate as part of their duties as public employees.

  • Incorrect

    Although the First Amendment does protect the rights of all citizens, those rights are limited when people choose to become public employees. As the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Garcetti v. Ceballos (2006), “When a public employee speaks pursuant to employment responsibilities, there is no relevant analogue to speech by citizens who are not government employees.”

  • Correct!

    On October 17, 2008, Federal District Court (NY) Judge Lewis Kaplan upheld New York City’s policy prohibiting teachers from wearing political buttons in the classroom, but said the teachers could place campaign material into colleagues’ mailboxes and hang posters on bulletin boards maintained by their union, as long as they were in areas off-limits to students.

  • Incorrect

    In the 1969 case Tinker v. Des Moines, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled: “It can hardly be argued that either teachers or students shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” As this case demonstrates, however, those rights are not without their limits.

Remember — US Supreme Court decisions outline "the law of the land." Lower court decisions do not. Sometimes, this means different lower courts will issue contradicting opinion.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE COURT'S DECISION?

0 responses to Teacher Rights

Add your own response.