Talking Out of Turn: Teacher Speech for Hire

• In Event: Aims and Ethics in Education

Abstract

In our hyper-partisan political context, teachers must balance their commitments to maintaining an open classroom climate and ensuring their students’ well-being. Especially when conversations turn towards current events, teachers are forced to make decisions about how to address political questions in the classroom that directly impact students’ lives. Importantly, when the decisions teachers make in the classroom conflict with district policies on neutrality, teachers risk losing their jobs. Arguably, however, the districts who set and enforce these policies are acting as the democratically elected representatives of their local community. Therefore, we argue that teacher speech rights deserve more sustained philosophical and legal attention so as to strengthen teachers’ capacities to promote powerful civic learning even while maintaining their public accountability.

Authors

• Ellis Reid, Harvard University

• Meira Levinson, Harvard University

• Jacob Fay, Harvard University