This incident, from Howell High in Livingston Michigan, is an ethics train wreck, and a tough one to analyze.

A Michigan teacher has been accused of bullying students in an incident sparked by the teacher himself wearing a purple shirt in a gesture of support toward gay students who suffer at the hands of bullies.

Jay McDowell, a teacher at the high school, wore a purple shirt to class on  a day approved by the school  for students to wear purple in support of gay teens. This came in response to several nationally publicized incidents of bullying and beating of gays, leading, in some cases, to suicide. When one student asked about the teacher’s shirt, McDowell’s explanation sparked an argument. 16-year-old Daniel Glowacki protested that McDowell had just asked another student to remove a belt buckle bearing the image of the Confederate flag, which McDowell sais was offensive to him. Glowacki, however, argued that it was inconsistent and unfair for the teacher to make a student remove a symbol he felt was offensive, but force students, like Glowacki, to tolerate the purple shirts and rainbow flags, which Glowacki said celebrated conduct that he, as a Catholic, found offensive to his personal beliefs. He then announced that he didn’t accept gays, and another student agreed. The teacher ejected and suspended both of them for inappropriate and disruptive class conduct.

The school, in response to parent objections, then disciplined McDowell. The letter of reprimand read:

“You went on to discipline two students who told you they do not accept gays due to their religion. After a failure of getting one student to recant, you engaged in an unsupported snap suspension, rather than allow the student his beliefs. You also state you routinely do not allow this expression [the Confederate flag] in your classroom because it offends you, and you personally connect this symbol to a list of oppressions and atrocities. You do, however, allow the display of the rainbow flag, to which some of your students have voiced opposition.”

McDowell is fighting the reprimand, backed by the teachers union. Glowacki has been moved to another class.  The student body is boiling with controversy.

Nice job, everybody!

At this point, there is no way to come out of this with everyone’s welfare intact. Maybe it is not too late for some coherent lessons.

Here is where things stand, as we sort through the ethics wreckage:

The School Administrators (Pre-incident): As we have seen in other schools at other times, holding Hispanic pride days, African-American pride day, Let’s Fight Global Warming Day, Girl Power Day, and any number of other specific celebrations or endorsements of positions that are exclusive or controversial in any way is just asking for conflict. Public schools won’t celebrate Christmas any more, yet they are perfectly willing to confound their primary job of educating children in English, science, math and history to promote a private sexual orientation that is contrary to the faith of  Catholics and conservative Protestants. There is no coherent policy here, just knee-jerk feelings about what are good things to celebrate and bad things. In the absence of cultural consensus, a school that is going to do this has to think it through carefully, and this was not done at Howell High.

In particular, using shirts, flags and ribbons is inherently coercive. You either must wear the “flag” to show your support, or you mark yourself as not being supportive, in this case, a presumed anti-gay bigot. This is unfair to student who, by no fault of their own, come from families that are not accepting of gays, gay sex, and gay relationships. If the school wants to teach tolerance and anti-bullying for all, that can be done responsibly, but a “you are with us or against us” branding exercise requires students to reveal (or lie about) their thoughts and beliefs in a peer group setting. That is unfair and wrong, and it was predictable that the structure of the day would make some students resentful and confrontational.

The Teacher: The school placed teacher Jay McDowell in an impossible situation, it is true. By sanctioning the day of support for gay, lesbian and transgendered students, the school forced him to choose between wearing a shirt to show support, thus placing a divide and perceived tension between him and the students who chose not to do so, or not participating, which would be interpreted by some GLTG students as rejecting the message of the day. He chose the wrong option: class is not an appropriate place for teachers to advertise personal causes, even admirable ones. It is an abuse of position and power. It is also an abuse of power to censor student clothing choices according to what offends the teacher.

If the school chooses to ban the Confederate flag as a fashion statement, fine, though they had better ban all flags but the Stars and Stripes too.  Offending the teacher, however, in the absence of a policy, does not justify a demand to remove the offending belt, T-shirt or other garment. In this matter, the objecting students had a valid point. The belt buckle offended the teacher (he said that it could be seen as an endorsement of racism, and he objected to it), and he banned it. But when the student said they were offended by his purple shirt, which they saw as an endorsement of sexual practices their religion found offensive, McDowell banned them. McDowell’s conduct was inconsistent, biased and unfair. Essentially, his standard is that it is wrong to offend the people he agrees with, but offenses to people he disagrees with are acceptable. A teacher can’t play favorites like that, nor should he force students to accept his belief system.

The Students: They had a point. Nonetheless, the time and place to express it was privately, not in open class. Right or wrong in his disparate handling of the belt buckle and the pro-gay symbols, McDowell’s objection to the students announcing their disapproval of gays in class was quite correct, if that’s what he was doing. He should not have dismissed and suspended them for the content of their comments, but for the place and manner in which they made them. They were disrespectful of their fellow students, rude and disruptive.

School Administrators (Post-incident): Having opened this can of worms by foolishly allowing the school’s primary purpose–education— to be diverted into a gay pride exercise, administrators had some nerve punishing McDowell for mishandling it. It appears to be yet another case of school administrators taking the path of least resistance, and caving to parental complaints….by parents who seem to be raising their kids to be anti-gay bigots, no less. They should have reinstated the students, told them to keep their anti-gay sentiments to themselves in class, told McDowell not to take sides in matters where he may find students on the opposite side, and gotten to work putting together a dress code so teachers couldn’t make it up as they go along.

The lessons of this train wreck are more practical and logical  than ethical, though they involve prudence and competence:

• Use school for teaching, not political, religious or social policy grandstanding. Leave discussions of such matters to civics and social studies class, and in those discussions, allow all civil opinions, even politically incorrect or unpopular ones.
• If the teacher can’t handle that, then he has an obligation to stick to the textbook, and avoid open debate.
• Ban symbolic garb of all kinds, including ribbons, flags, political T-shirts, and ethnic or religious symbols, and
• Stay away from days that risk dividing students—and unwary teachers—into “us” and “them.”

In other words, use school for schooling. Everything else is too risky today.

[You can read McDonnell’s statement here; the school’s, here.]