{"id":482,"date":"2006-03-10T19:03:06","date_gmt":"2006-03-10T23:03:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shermandorn.com\/wordpress\/?p=482"},"modified":"2006-03-10T19:03:06","modified_gmt":"2006-03-10T23:03:06","slug":"media-mayhem-in-miami","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/?p=482","title":{"rendered":"Media mayhem in Miami"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.miami.com\/mld\/miamiherald\/living\/education\/14062839.htm\">Miami Herald<\/a> tells the story of Miami Sunset Senior High business and technology teacher Donna Reddick, whose anti-homosexuality comments in a student-journalist video series have sparked discussion of whether out-of-classroom remarks by school employees in a student-journalism project is protected speech or makes it difficult for her to teach gay students (or, more properly, difficult for them to trust that she&#8217;ll treat them in a non-discriminatory fashion).<br \/>\nHer comments were in the last segment of a video series shown at the school, on a topic the students chose (views towards homosexuality). Previous segments had included views of students and other staff that were positive or neutral, and according to news reports Reddick&#8217;s statement was part of a segment featuring comments critical of homosexuality. <em>God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of their sexual sins, which included homosexuality<\/em>, she told the student journalists.<br \/>\nMore on the jump&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<hr width=\"25%\">\nIf the reporting is accurate, here are the salient facts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Reddick&#8217;s comments were not made in class.\n<li>Reddick&#8217;s comments were in response to a request by the student journalists and helped them fulfill an assignment.\n<li>Reddick did not address or attack the integrity of individual students.\n<li>The series sparked plenty of discussion in the hallways of the school.<\/ul>\n<p>First, it&#8217;s clear that the student journalists succeeded spectacularly in prompting discussion on the topic. I suspect that most gay students at Miami Sunset will learn that their peers support their rights to an equal education and life outside school, as do a majority of teachers (if less flamboyantly than students). Might some feel uncomfortable around Reddick?  Yes, but I don&#8217;t think discomfort is a reason to punish a teacher for comments made in response to a direct request by students. (Apparently, school district administrators haven&#8217;t ruled out disciplinary action against Reddick.) Teenagers are old enough to know about &#8220;sticks and stones.&#8221;<br \/>\nSecond, the context is important. I could see far greater grounds for concern if the comments had been in her class, directed at specific students, or in environment with preexisting anti-gay violence where similar remarks might be a red cape for those bent on hate crimes. Her comments were not made in class, were not in a context to elicit or provoke violence (or even discrimination), and were made where refusal to grant an interview to students by all of the teachers with similar views <em>would have made the students&#8217; assignment impossible to fulfill<\/em>: How do you illustrate diverse opinions on a topic if people holding one perspective silence themselves?<br \/>\n(Tip from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eduwonk.com\/archives\/2006_03_05_archive.html#114201489696546428\">Andrew Rotherham<\/a>. Also see a <a href=\"http:\/\/cbs4.com\/topstories\/local_story_068212924.html\">local CBS station<\/a> story.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s Miami Herald tells the story of Miami Sunset Senior High business and technology teacher Donna Reddick, whose anti-homosexuality comments in a student-journalist video series have sparked discussion of whether out-of-classroom remarks by school employees in a student-journalism project is protected speech or makes it difficult for her to teach gay students (or, more properly, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-freedom"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pag0MB-7M","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}