ARTIFACT #2 ASSIGNMENT

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Artifact #2 Assignment
Stephanie Blair
College of Southern Nevada

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Abstract

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This essay is a reflection of what can happen to teachers when they make racial comments in a school
setting. There are examples of court case and laws that have been passed to both help and hinder
teachers. In the essay there are both pros and cons about what the teacher had done and what the best
possible outcome could be in this particular situation.

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In today's day and age one would think that racism would have fizzled out by now, we are no longer
living in the 1960's after all. Unfortunately that is not the case and racism is still a very large issue in
our, as well as other, countries. Teachers are not always given a choice of what students they get, it is
simply at random and they must do their job and teach whoever they get. In the case of Ann Griffin, a
white female teacher, she got a class of predominantly black students and one day made a comment to
the heads of the school, whom are both black, that she hated al black folks. Now while Ms. Griffin
does have the right to free speech, she also had rules that she must abide by as a teacher.

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On one hand, Ms. Griffin has the right to free speech and should be allowed to say what she pleases.
This right comes straight from the United States Constitution, the First Amendment. And while racist
comments are not typically praised by people they are also not against the law so in one sense she has
not really done anything wrong. While there are both moral and ethically issues about what she had
said it is not a comment that would cause her to get terminated out of the school district.

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Along with having the right to free speech, teachers are allowed free association and cannot be
discipline for non disruptive participation of political, labor, religious, or social organizations or
activities. (Webb 50) Just like in the case of Melzer v. Bd. Of Educ. Of the City Sch. Dist. Of the
City of N.Y. The court upheld that teachers may become members of organizations even if they would
typically be frowned upon by the public. While Ms. Griffin may not be part of any kind of gang or
anything relevant to racism, she does have the right to her own opinions as long as they do not disrupt
any school related activity or class. In this case, she was speaking in private with the principal and
assistant principal when the comment was made so no children would have heard and therefore not

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disrupt anything in the school.

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On the other hand, Ms. Griffin did made a racist comment in a public school building. And when
comments like these are made they may be breaching the employment contract set up by the employer.
In the case of Loeffelman v. Board of Education of the Crystal City School District a teacher made
comments on interracial students and was terminated for those comments. When teachers make these
sorts of comments they are allowing others to know that they are prejudiced against those students and
it could potentially harm their education. Ms. Griffin made the comments about the students even if it
was not to their faces.

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The other major issue at hand is that even though Ms. Griffin did not disrupt the education of her
students it is against the law to discriminate based on race, color, and national origin. This comes from
The Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974 (Webb 185). This law protects students from getting
an unfair education based on the before mentioned reasons & if it would be possible to prove that Ms.
Griffin was discriminating she could be facing even larger legal issues than being terminated. While it
is not a proven fact, it would lead the principal and assistant principal to believe that these issues could
arise in the future and want to put an end to it before it even begins.

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For Ms. Griffin to make a comment about the color of students or of a group of people in general in in
bad practice and of bad taste. However, the school would be in the right to release her from her contract
due to the possible disruption in their students education. It is unfortunate that teachers sometimes get
caught up in the heat of the moment and make statements that they may regret later but we do have the

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right to free speech but at the same time, other laws come into play as well when it comes to students
and their education.

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References

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Underwood, J., & Webb, L. (2006). School law for teachers: Concepts and applications. Upper Saddle
River, N.J.: Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall.