Lawsuit Seeks Reinstatement of KY Teacher Dismissed for Appearing in Adult Film
by Jim Brown
July 28, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A high school science teacher who was fired by a Kentucky school board for appearing in a pornographic film over a decade ago is fighting to get her job back.Tericka Dye was fired last spring by the McCracken County School Board after school officials learned she appeared in a porn film in 1995. She was 23 at the time. Dye, who was a science teacher and volleyball coach at Reidland High School in Paducah, says taking part in the movie -- at a time when she was struggling financially -- was a moral lapse of only a few hours, and that she has since become a Christian and deserves a second chance.
McCracken County school superintendent Tim Heller says Dye was fired because her presence in the classroom would have been a distraction to students. Now Dye's attorney, Mark Blankenship, has filed a lawsuit seeking her reinstatement.
"It seems to me you're punishing a teacher because of [potential] student misbehavior," he says. "You know, it's like [saying] 'the students won't be able to handle this, so we're going to have to let the teacher go.'"
That rationale, says the attorney, is causing the school district to miss out on an opportunity to allow Dye to share "truly an American success story" in her classroom.
"She grew up in a very poor family [and had] an alcoholic father; she was abused sexually by an uncle when she was from six to thirteen. I mean, she got off to such a horrible start in life and then made something of herself," Blankenship notes. "And now, a public school system, which is really part of our government, sort of throws her away."
Dye, whose case goes before a circuit court judge next month, received the "Outstanding Senior in Earth Science" award from the school's Department of Geosciences at Murray State University in 2004.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
