Free Speech for Teachers

We are glad to see that the Williamson County School Board has agreed to stop investigating the private speech of educators.

We are mystified why it would take the threat of legal action for the school board to understand that this investigation infringed upon the constitutional rights of educators. We are also unclear why we did not hear objections from the board to the practice of secretly recording educators on their private time, airing the recording six months later, and spreading false information about these valued educators.

We do not understand why the school board thought it appropriate to write questions and oversee an investigation into political speech of which they disapproved.

We understand the investigation itself is ongoing, and given the shifting explanations over the past 6.5 weeks about who is running this investigation, what and who is being investigated, and why, we will wait and see how educators are actually treated in the end.

What will the school board do to apologize to the educators they subjected to inappropriate interrogation and the implied threat to their jobs?

What will the school board do with the inappropriately collected information based on hours of interrogation of educators?

What will the Williamson County School Board do regarding a school board member’s (or members’) involvement in the distribution of secretly-recorded audio of a meeting of educators that was made while they were NOT at work?

What measures will the school board take to ensure that educators are not subjected to similar treatment in the future?