I might have written this Columbus Dispatch story a little differently. Seems a teacher in Ohio is going to be fired after accusations that he has improperly inserted his personal opinions into the curriculum. (And, as everybody knows, the only people who have a right insert their personal opinions wherever they want are Supreme Court justices, whose personal opinions are the law of the land.) It’s the usual reportorial blah-blah for most of the story …
MOUNT VERNON, Ohio — The Mount Vernon eighth-grade science teacher who has been under scrutiny for focusing on creationism and intelligent design in his classes will contest his planned firing at an Aug. 26 hearing.
The date was announced last night during a school board meeting in which several supporters for John Freshwater publicly chastised the school board for its plans to fire him.
… until almost the end, when we read this:
The family of one of Freshwater’s former students who had a cross burned onto his arm by the teacher sued the school district and Freshwater last month. The suit says the boy’s civil rights were violated.
He’s still on the payroll. What do you have to do to get fired? They’re arguing about whether the guy went a little too Genesis during eighth-grade science when he burned a cross into a student’s arm? Egad. Mightn’t that have been a little higher in the story?