Activist Defends Teacher Fired For Discussing Iraq War in Classroom
by Jim Brown
February 2, 2004
(AgapePress) - A civil liberties group is defending a college teacher in North Carolina who lost her job after using part of her class to speak out against the Iraq war while the ground invasion was under way.During her business-writing class at Forsyth Technical Community College in Winston-Salem, instructor Elizabeth Ito voiced some of her own thoughts about the U.S. military invasion of Iraq, and also provided a forum in which her students could share their opinions on the war.
Subsequently Forsyth administrators dismissed Ito for insubordination after she refused to give her word that she would never again discuss the war in class.
Greg Lukianoff with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education says Ito should not have been punished for expressing her political views in class, especially when her remarks on Iraq lasted only ten minutes and later served as the basis for a class writing assignment. Moreover, he says, the teacher's refusal to promise to avoid the topic in the future was only her way of reserving the right to talk about the war in the event that her students brought it up again.
Lukianoff says what is disappointing and worrisome about the case is that Ito was penalized for a minor digression that happened once. The civil liberties advocate feels the situation would have been different if, for instance, a physics professor repeatedly spent inordinate amounts of class time discussing his opinions on foreign policy.
In such a case, Lukianoff says, "you can certainly fire [him] for being a lousy physics professor. However, if you create an atmosphere where a one-time digression, particularly on a matter of global importance, can cost you your job, it's going to seriously chill the atmosphere for free speech in class."
In Ito's case, Lukianoff says if she had been guilty of frequently digressing from appropriate subject matter to discuss issues that had nothing to do with her class, then certainly, she might rightly be punished or disciplined in some way. "But creating a precedent where professors -- particularly in a writing class, which really depends on open discussion -- have to censor everything they say for a one-time digression, is going to be very harmful to debate and candor in class," he says, "and that doesn't help anyone."
Ito is considering whether to take legal action against Forsyth Technical Community College.
