ACLU Files Suit for Teacher Fired for Painting With His Butt

Posted on October 6, 2007

Hat tip: Perfunction…found via Ace.

I’m not sure how this is a First Amendment issue. Most people that have jobs can and do get fired for doing things outside of work that may embarrass their compainies. No one is stopping him from sitting in paint and making prints, the school just doesn’t want the association, or to be percieved as endorsing his off work behavior. Then again, I can kinda see both sides on this. Regardless, I just think this lawsuit is good for a chuckle. I’m sure, however, someone will be around soon to tell me that the first amendment is no laughing matter. But,but…but…heh…

A little about it all:

The ACLU of Virginia has filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Chesterfield County teacher who was fired in January after a video surfaced online that showed him painting with his buttocks and genitals.

Stephen Murmer was an art teacher at Monacan High School for more than seven years. The School Board suspended him last December after students found a 3-year-old video of Murmer online demonstrating his painting techniques. In the video, Murmer was wearing a disguise and using the name Stan Murmur. At the time, he was selling his paintings on a Web site.

Kent Willis, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, said the suit filed this morning in federal court in Richmond asks for declaratory and injunctory relief, as well as financial compensation. Willis said that means they’re asking the court to find that what the school division did to Murmer in firing him was unconstitutional, and to order the school division not to act this way in future situations. Willis said Murmer now lives in Alabama.

Here is the video that got him fired.

» Filed Under 1st Amendment, ACLU, News

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One Response to “ACLU Files Suit for Teacher Fired for Painting With His Butt”

David on October 7th, 2007 8:42 am

Hmmm, and nowhere is there any evidence that his butt-paintings were

a.) religious exercises
b.) political speech

This is what we get for not maintaining a strict interpretation of the Constitution according to the Framers’ own clearly expressed views. By allowing such as the ACLU (and faux liberals AND faux “conservatives”) to make the COnstitution say whatever they please, we’ve opened the door to these sorts of idiocies.

Of course, if helps the enemies of the Republic that nearly 70% of recent college grads can’t read and understand such simple things as the dumbed-down rhetoric in a newspaper editorial or instructions for taking prescription meds. A subliterate populace is ripe for anarcho-tyranny. As Ian Williams Goddard said, “A society whose citizens refuse to see and investigate the facts, who refuse to believe that their government and their media will routinely lie to them and fabricate a reality contrary to verifiable facts, is a society that chooses and deserves the Police State Dictatorship itâ€™s going to get.”