Coach fired for writing country-western song...

Take a nap, Jim.

--- Joe

He was - the meds mean he don't stay down!

I haven't had any urges to nap since my mid-40's... not quite sure what that means.

And, nope! I don't have any trouble keeping "it" up ;-) ...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson, CTO | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | | | Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat | | E-mail Icon at

Spice is like a sports car... Performance only as good as the person behind the wheel.

So much for the first amendment.

Well, the school board maintains the guy's dismissal had nothing to do with the song.

If it did, what you can and can't say on and off the job and how it effects what your employer can can't do to you gets very murky. See, e.g.,

I do find it a bit ironic that a conservative guy would be threatening a lawsuit when conservatives would generally be the ones to advocate employers being able to fire anyone for any arbitrary reason whatsoever vs. the liberals who want lots of worker protection laws.

I'll bet you a nickel what really happened is that while, sure, he used his personal e-mail account, he was using school-owned equipment at the time he did it. I suspect there's probably some clear-cut rule about that not being acceptable use of his employer's equipment, so unless he's able to demonstrate that, e.g., other employees were using equipment for similar activities, administrators were informed and did nothing, I doubt he'd have much of a leg to stand on in court.

Or maybe it really doesn't have anything to do with the song whatsoever, as the school maintains -- it's a pretty benign song, if you ask me; I sure wouldn't fire anyone over it.

---Joel

But you're not a sicko liberal.

I've had liberals in my neighborhood write to the newspaper saying the newspaper shouldn't print my letters.

I retort that, when this sicko liberalism government collapses, I'll be running thru the neighborhood shooting them in the ass. That shuts 'em up :-0 ...Jim Thompson

His tale explicitly states he was 'told' the song was the reason and their deafening silence about what any other 'good reason' might be doesn't help their claim.

Last I heard the "public schools" were considered a 'government job' and, so far, no one has offered any insight as to how his song could 'disrupt the workplace'. Not to mention that, even if no state law to the effect exists, one would think at least a hearing and chance to discuss the matter would be common sense prudence.

You are conflating a whole range of issues. For one, dictating who can, or must, be hired or fired based on nothing more than racial head count, as one example, is an entirely different matter than freedom of speech but the even bigger issue is 'public schools' are not private enterprises and if the First Amendment means anything at all it's to protect individuals from 'government' attempting to control criticism.

If it's such a clear cut and plainly stated common policy then how come no school official seems able to mention it?

Not only that, but from the accounts I've read, the superintendent of schools was unable, or unwilling, to articulate any reason even after saying he had talked to them and was 'satisfied' they had handled it 'appropriately'.

Neither would I, even if you substituted 42 for 43 and 43 for 44. Which makes the additional charge it's 'racist' all the more absurd.

On the other hand, racist racist racist is the new mind numbed robot knee jerk substitute for liar liar liar.

Yes, it's his word against theirs as to why he was fired.

Few businesses will speak to the media regarding why someone was terminated these days; there's a lot of risk doing so, and generally no upside.

Agreed, that's why they probably got him on some technicality such as unauthorized use of the school's equipment.

Not an unreasonable request, but it doesn't bother me if an employer chooses not to offer such a process either.

See above. It's just S.O.P. for both private businesses as well as the government these days.

It's just like calling for job references today -- most businesses will only verify that someone worked for them for a specified period of time in a given position but will refuse to provide infomration any regarding their performance or reason for termination.

Yes.

Yep, absolutely correct. A lot of people apparently didn't pay quite enough attention in school to learn what "racism" is; plenty of folks who disagree with (1) Obama and (2) immigration policy are unfairly tarred with the "racist" brush.

---Joel

Actually, it's his word against nothing as they've given no reason whatsoever.

Government is not a business and government agencies have no such luxury unless it's specifically a "serves at the pleasure of" position.

Your automatic blind faith and eagerness to invent an excuse despite not one word of explanation is touching but unsupported.

Out of curiosity, how long are you going to hold onto the canard that public schools are a 'business'?

Government is not private business and if they think silence will avert a lawsuit they are obviously mistaken.

That's because they worry about potential defamation lawsuits but these folks have already guaranteed a lawsuit by, if nothing else, their timing.

I made a similar comment about the lack of dictionary use with those hurling liar but it's clear those who do so don't give a tinker's dam what the words mean. They're just rocks to throw at whoever they feel like stoning this week.

You're right, I worded that poorly -- it's his word that he was fired due to the song vs. their word that he wasn't fired due to the song.

Really? I can't imagine that if you call up some random government office they're legally required to immediately give you a reason as to why someone was fired. Eventually, maybe, but certainly not right away.

Apparently indefeinitely. :-)

---Joel

Typical sicko neocon - violence as a solution to everything.

Thanks, Rich

Thanks Jim!

flipper > Out of curiosity, how long are you going to hold flipper > onto the canard that public schools are a 'business'?

I would use the term INDUSTRY.

Just because the main part of it is in government hands does not change the fact. Like several such government INDUSTRIES there is an entire COMPLEX of beneficiaries both non-profit and for-profit. Some of their decisions are insanely driven by FEDERAL FUNDING.

flipper > Government is not private business and flipper > if they think silence will avert a lawsuit flipper > they are obviously mistaken.

Have you ever tried to sue a government agency? I wish it was as easy as you think it is. It should be in most cases, but it's not.

Many government agencies actually do act more like organized crime when it comes to Freedom Of Information Act, subpoenas, etc.

Public Schools are not the WORST of the "government INDUSTRIES" in this regard, likely because of the PTA's, high visibility and local control, but often their district lawyer DOES tell them to keep silent.

Should we talk about the political orientation of school administrators and teachers next?

When You're Holding a Hammer Everything Looks Like a Nail

by Kyle Hill & Bryan Glover

JT > be running thru the neighborhood shooting JT > them in the ass. =A0That shuts 'em up :-0

Richard > Typical sicko neocon - violence as a solution to everything.

Do you REALLY think liberals don't do that?

Are you REALLY a Libertarian, Richard?

They Attempted to violate Jim's 1st Amendment Rights. What's the allowed punishment for conspiracy to violate civil rights?

That's a LIBERTY interest, Richard!

Simple solution: Shoot Richard in the ass as well ;-) ...Jim Thompson

So that makes it ok? Does that deserve a firing or a repremand? Would a liberal have gotten the same treatment?

The fact of the matter is that the liberal principle didn't like it and fired him... and liberals are suppose to be soooo tolerant of other peoples views. After all, just look how hard they try to understand muslims.

Does anyone know a case where a liberal was fired for a similar incident?

Possibly but lets be serious here for a moment. Isn't the most likely cause that some liberal got "offended" because someone said something about their messiah? They complained and this person was fired... mind you, FIRED. Not repremanded but fired. This reaks of bias.

Now, it is possible that this guy is a total loon and they've been looking for something to get rid of him. But we all know how liberals in power behave as we have our prototypes Pelosi, Reed, and Obsama.

Maybe this is the new tolerance liberals have? If they don't agree with you they simply tolerate you by making you into a racist? After all, they seem to have no problem with tolerating muslims.

On Aug 27, 12:42=A0pm, "Jeff Johnson" wrote: [...] JJ > Maybe this is the new tolerance liberals have? JJ > If they don't agree with you they simply JJ > tolerate you by making you into a racist? [...]

Don't forget the Journal-LIST plan where various big name ""journalists"" planned to shut down any questions about Jeremiah Wright by picking some Republican at random and publicly accusing them of being racist.

No, it doesn't make it OK (assuming it was somewhat motivated by his writing the song -- and I can believe it could have been). But as a practical matter, if your employer doesn't want you around -- even if it's for a completely ridiculous reason -- sooner or later they'll find a legally defensible reason to fire you. And you also have to consider -- even if you can somehow force an employer to keep you around, do you really want to work for people you know don't really want you there?

I'm making a bunch of wild assumptions here, but I'd be willing to bet that even if you were a lawyer looking to take on a bias case, this guy's particular situation wouldn't be partiuclarly attractive. He used "privileged" information (the e-mail lists of the parents) for non-work-related activities (strike one), I'm guessing he used the school's equipment to send those e-mails (strike two), etc. -- once it all comes out in court it'll get messy fast.

I hope some private school that's run by somewhat more conservative folks offers him a job -- it'd be best for everyone.

Plenty of folks from all sides of the political spectrum are hypocrites. :-)

But you can't judge any group -- liberals, conservatives, or Muslims -- from the actions of a few of their members. This is particularly true of groups where the official stance is to try to accomodate as many as possible... there's a fascinating discussion of this here:

---Joel

Can't you hit a smaller target?

I haven't fired a gun in quite a few years but, in my youth, I could shoot a bird out of the air with a _pistol_ at around 50'.

Shooting leftist weenies should be easy, just aim in the general vicinity of the smell :-) ...Jim Thompson