Help! Help! Help! Help! Help! I hope my message reaches you. I’ve lost my job. I’ve lost my home. I’ve lost my life savings. But most importantly I’ve lost my freedom . . . and so have you.
I’m a mom, a teacher -- a really good one, a community organizer, a campaign volunteer, and proudly, a peace activist (outside of school). I did all the right things, yet my government has taken everything away from me. All I want to do is teach my students and create excellent schools. It shouldn’t be so hard to just survive. I am desperate, and I need your help.
How did we lose free speech? Why haven't you heard about it? How can we get it back?
Remember that landmark court case, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District? “It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate. . . .”?
That’s not true anymore. Free speech, it’s just one more little piece of the Constitution the Bush administration has trashed. During the past two years over 20 million government workers lost their right of free speech. It's true.
You’re probably thinking I’m delusional. If such a thing had happened, you would have known. The major media would have covered the story. People would be outraged. YOU would be outraged! After all, twenty million people losing their First Amendment rights is substantial.
Actually, one major newspaper did cover the story here and again, but unless you live in San Francisco, you probably missed it. Even though the "peace incident" occurred in Bloomington, Indiana, the Herald Times newspaper refused to print any in depth coverage. Most citizens of Bloomington have no idea that the school district fought to lose their rights.
But it has happened. By beating up on two innocent citizens, attorney Richard Ceballos and teacher Deborah Mayer, the Bush court was able to abolish the free speech rights of millions. Can our democracy possibly be that fragile? Apparently so.
First in Garcetti v. Ceballos (2006), the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that government workers lose their rights as citizens at work with the exception of educators. Then in Mayer v. Monroe County Community School Corporation (2007), the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that teachers have no First Amendment rights in the classroom saying that a teacher’s speech is a commodity she sells to the school for a salary. The court cited Garcetti to silence teachers, thus overriding Tinker.
Since I said four little words in my classroom “I honk for peace” five years ago, my life has been a living hell. I was fired for innocently making a comment in support of peace before the war in Iraq began. (That same day I was also required to teach that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was an imminent threat to America.) A small group of parents complained about the peace comment, called me unpatriotic, insisted that I not mention peace in my class again, and demanded that I be fired . . . and even though I complied, I lost my job. I was blacklisted by the school, and my career has been a train wreck since.
When I decided to stand up for my rights, I could not have imagined that in doing so I would lose my rights as well as those of millions of others. That burden weighs so heavily on my heart and mind that it is almost too much too bear . . . especially since no one knows about it. I think if people knew they could share the burden and help win back free speech.
During the past five years, I’ve been unemployed most of the time. The neo-conservative attorney for the school that fired me, has spread vicious rumors about me on the internet and is relentless in making sure I never work again.
In a newsletter used by administrators as a resource to vett teachers, he compares my activities as a peace activist with those of a teacher who poses nude on the Internet and another who had sex with a 13-year old boy. He tells administrators I will sue employers who don’t hire me after they review my application. That's ridiculous. But the result is that employers don’t review my application, preventing me from finding work. So I’m losing my home, and car, --everything-- because I can’t make a living.
Worse than that, he says that no one argues that “that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” Of course, that’s not true. He, himself, argued in a brief to the Supreme Court that teachers have no such rights. He is pretending that my case never happened.
So, I have two questions for John McCain as he seeks to continue the policies of the Bush administration and the Bush court.
- The Bush court has robbed many American citizens of their fundamental rights, will you work to restore those freedoms and protect the Constitution?
and
- Since you can’t possibly live in all your houses at once, could I live in one until I find work, please?
Seriously, I’m homeless. Can you hear me?
Related diaries here and here.