Politics, Teachers and Schools

I've never witnessed a more political year than this one. I was back in Illinois this weekend visiting my old school where I taught, watching my little sister get crowned homecoming attendant, going to a wedding and making applebutter (and burning my hand pretty badly - it was a crazy weekend), but politics was topic #1 on everyone's mind. I have never seen my little small town in Southern Illinois so worked up for an election. The economy tanking and who to vote for ... there was no mention of the weather on this weekend. I even experienced a little of this phenomenon. 

Anyway, this crazy political year has spurned some interesting cases, the latest of which is a pretty big lawsuit now in New York. David Bloomfield sent me the big story in the New York Times about it (thanks David) (here is an AP story as well). The UFT is gunning against an (arguably) rarely enforced policy in the local regulations that teachers maintain "complete neutrality" in their duties. Here is the union's press release. Specifically, the UFT has singled out the school district stopping a teacher from posting an Obama banner on the union's bulletin board in a school and campaign buttons. 

Now, the school district seems in a pretty good position on this one as they are only enforcing a regulation that was already on the books. However, there are a couple of limitations. First, there have been a lot of cases regarding union bulletin boards and mailboxes and courts have frequently found in favor of teachers. Arguably, the teachers are not "on duty" when they are in the break room where the bulletin boards and mailboxes are located. So, in their case against posting the Obama poster, I think the teachers have a good case. But, second, on the campaign buttons what's going to happen here is a battle of seldom enforced regulations against traditions. My feeling is that regulations will usually win that fight, but if the union can show lots of specific instances where the regulation was not enforced in the recent past, they will have a shot, although a long one. So, I like the bulletin board case and don't like the campaign button case as much.

Also, I wonder how far the union will be willing to take this case. Now, three weeks before the election, it makes some nice headlines and makes for good public relations with the Obama campaign, a group the union will undoubtedly lobby heavily if they win the Whitehouse (did you notice that Randi Weingarten spoke at the Democratic National Convention?). But, after the election, this case looks a lot different and looks a whole lot more like something that could be renegotiated in the next collective bargaining agreement rather than fought out in court.This might be one of those cases we might not hear from again.