Joe Quigley, teacher - Part Two, page 2

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Part Two, page 2

Toward the end of my last class on the day of the very mini-walk-out I received a note from the Dean of Instruction (an invented position without much of a job description which put the holder of the job at the mercy of those administrators with identifiable job descriptions) requesting that I come to his office before leaving for the day. It seems that three students had reported to an assistant principal. Two of them were concerned about my less than acceptable treatment of my senior class, the "Rebel Without a Clue" voicing the complaint while his adoring fan merely nodded in agreement. The third student, who had joined them in the hall and was not privy to what had happened in the classroom, chimed in that she was offended by my Homosexual Poster. The other two said that as they had Gay friends the poster did not bother them. The matter was referred to the dean of students, as he was the one that was to evaluate my teaching performance, but the only complaint he was directed to address was the poster. The other complaint was never dealt with. Since I had not only worked with him at the middle school, but he was the one who had pursued my transfer to the high school, we were on friendly terms. He admitted he was aware that I had had a similar poster in my middle school classroom, was aware of my work with the district, but he had been told to deal with the complaint and so he was doing just that.

I for my part explained it was Gay and Lesbian History Month, that it was important for the students to see during this month that there were many Gay and Lesbian people who had made major contributions to western civilization and that Gay and Lesbian students see that there were actually positive role-models for them. In spite of his acknowledging that these were lofty goals his concern was that I could not justify the poster on the grounds of multi-culturalism as the various cultures were not represented, only Gay and Lesbian People were. His argument smacked of the erroneous belief that "Gay" was a white man's thing, and revealed that no one bothered to actually read the list or the Asians-Americans, African-Americans, and Hispanic-Americans would have been noticed.

His suggestion for remedying the situation was for me to go out that night and expend my own time, energy and funds on purchasing posters that represented all minority groups. My counter to this was three-fold. Would I be required to do the same when I acknowledged the months set aside for other groups, that is hang posters about all other groups besides the one whose month it was? Would he, or the person who objected to the poster be willing to give me the funds to oblige this suggestion? And, finally, it would not be possible as I was attending the "Stop the Hate Rally" that was taking place that evening at the Myriad Gardens in downtown Oklahoma City, the irony of which was just short of pointed.

The following day before classes were to begin, the dean of instruction entered my room by the front door giving my room a quick survey before exiting out the back. Later that morning a student office aide delivered a note requesting that I report to the dean's office before leaving school for the weekend, a meeting at which he expressed his disappointment at my not following his suggestion and further suggesting that it might be a good idea to remove the poster by the beginning of the school day on Monday.

I gave the situation a lot of thought over the next two days, and concluded that to take down the poster would not only be a negative message to Gay and Lesbian students and their straight peers as well, but it would go against what I had been trying to do with the district and would legitimize the complaint of one student out of a student body of over 1400 students and a class load of well over 150.

And so it was on that Monday morning, along with facts and figures to back up my decision, I told the dean I would not remove the poster because it would not be in the best interest of the Gay and Lesbian Students or their peers, that it contained people of all ethnic and racial groups, and that the student who allegedly complained was from the majority religion who had many outlets at her disposal including Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Bible study groups and a host of heterosexual related school sponsored actvities. I went further to point out the uniqueness of the treatment of this poster as teachers did not have to have planned posters reviewed by administrators and many classrooms featured posters not directly related to the curriculum. My poster served a valuable purpose.

Although it is just speculation on my part, I believe that the planned chain of events that was to have transpired the rest of the day was thrown off by the death of a friend's mother whose funeral I was going to attend at 1:00 pm that afternoon.

After the dean once again passed through my room at which time I gave both the written reply and the reasons for it, a student office aide came to my room during the first class to deliver a summons to the dean of instruction's office. She made a crack that the dean must really like me as he was constantly sending me notes. I replied to his note to meet him in his office at 1:00 pm by explaining that I was leaving at noon to make sure I arrived on time for the funeral.

As I was dashing through the hall a little after noon, the dean met me and asked when we could meet. I suggested in the morning, but not too early as we would both probably want our morning coffee. We set the time of the meeting at 8:45, and off I ran.

I am convinced, although I cannot prove the suspicion, that the funeral interferred with the time-line that was to have our meeting take place before the parent of the student who complained was called to pacify him. Apparently he had threatened some sort of protest in front of the school if the poster was not removed, and someone felt this could be avoided if the parent was kept informed about how I was going to be handled.

However, after the funeral I returned home to find a message on my answering machine from the news department of a local T.V. station asking me to call the news director. Thinking they had reached me in error and wanting to let them know in case the story they were following was important, I returned the call and was asked my reaction to my impending reception of a reprimand at the meeting to take place at 8:45 the next day.

Obviously I could not give a reaction to news of which I was not aware. Although I did verify to the news director that there was a meeting, I could not confirm that I was getting a reprimand. Further, I was confused as to how she could possibly have known that since I did not. The parent of the student had called the news department after someone from the school had called him with the news. I did not know how to handle this violation of my rights if it were true, agreed to call the news director the next day with my reaction if I did get a reprimand, but after I had time to deal with it, and immediately called the local chapter of my union to ask advice.

For the rest of that evening there were quite a few phone calls made between me and the union, the union and the central adminmistration building, and me and the head of the public relations department to get advice on the parameters I must follow with the press as an employee. I went to school headquarters to meet with the P.R. director who never returned to her office, and had to settle with contacting her at her emergency pager number only to be told to avoid anything related to personnel matters.

To get away from the situation I attended some political affair at the Copa Club where the president of the local American Federation of Teachers traced me down to tell me that the deputy superintendent was asking me not to go to school in the morning, not as a punishment to me, but to avoid any potential demonstration that my attendance might provoke.

Apparently the principal was fearing that the parent had organized a picket line, and he wanted anything the parent might find objectionable removed from my classroom before school the next day so that if the parent somehow got to my classroom in the morning he would not see anything to which he could object. To this end, the principal had gone to my room that evening to remove anything Gay related, but found he had to contact the union president to see if he could get me to go to the classroom and help remove things. His major concern by the time the union president found me was a huge chain with rainbow colors on it that the student had included in those things that bothered her, having now expanded her complaint beyond the poster. The chain could not be found, and the principal feared that if the parent saw it in the morning there would be a scene. The fact that he was in the room and unable to see the chain should have been an indication of the extent to which the student had exaggerated the uncomfortableness of those things in my room. I refused to report to the school on the grounds that I would not be party to the removal of the "Gay things" and the expressed fear that to enter the school so far after hours could set me up for a charge of trespassing.

That evening on the nine o'clock news there was a report on my poster featuring the father of the complaining student accusing me of "teaching homosexuality" when Bibles and prayers were banned from schools. The student also appeared threatened, injured and offended at this afront to her religion. My name was mentioned, and the parent reported that I was to receive a reprimand the following morning as proof that I was in the wrong. The following morning I was contacted by the local station who had aired the report asking for my comment on the reprimand. I told the news director that I was asked to take the day off, which would not count against my personal sick days, and would contact her if I got some direction on how to handle this as it was all new to me, and, therefore, a little unsettling.

Hearing nothing from the district, and with support coming only from the union and a few friends, I called the local station agreeing to talk. Upon the arrival of the reporter and cameraman at my home, the reporter asked if she could see what the fuss was about, and I handed her a copy of the list of names I had hung on the bulletin board. She was markedly disappointed that it was merely a list with no pictures, saw no actual story in it, and then sat and read through the list occasionally expressing disbelief in a name or expressing satisfaction that someone she had suspected was indeed included. We spoke for at least thirty minutes covering the importance of Gay and Lesbian History Month, why it should be treated just as all the other history months were, and why I thought the poster was a positive thing. As she was leaving and I thanked her for what appeared to me to be a positive interview, she told me that in all reality there was no story here.

That night the station ran a little from the story of the night before, showed about thirty seconds of me, and that was it.

TO BE CONTINUED

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