I want to credit esteemed EA commenter JutGory for both the headline and the pointer. He properly identified this ethics tale out of Detroit as an important contrast to the “Naked Teacher Principle” and its many variations. The NTP et al. (like the the “Drag Queen School Principal Principle,” “the Porn Actor University Chancellor Principle,” and many others) holds that if you are a teacher or in some other position that requires the respect and trust of your employers and stakeholders, having photographs of you appearing naked or in other sexually provocative conditions appear on line justifies your separation from your job and leaves you no leave to complain.
Domonique Brown, however, a recent “Teacher of the Month” at Taylor Preparatory High School, did not have any naked photos or anything close on the web. She was fired from her job as a history teacher because the school learned that she had a second career as a rising rap artist named “Drippin’ Honey.” Brown had proven herself to be a skilled and popular teacher for seven years, and is pursuing a master’s degree and a doctorate. But when a parent alerted the school in an anonymous complaint last October that Domonique was also a rap artist, she found her fitness to teach being questioned.
Five months later the school terminated her. A statement from a spokesperson for Taylor Prep saidit was limited by student and employee privacy rights in what the school could reveal, but added that “Student well-being remains at the forefront of everything we do, and we will continue fostering a distraction-free teaching and learning environment focused on student success.”
Following her firing, the teacher made a defiant rap video, “Drippin 101, ” featuring some of her students dancing and singing along with her. “My outside life should not be grounds for termination when it does not interfere with my ability to fulfill my responsibilities as a teacher,” Brown posted with the video on YouTube. “My dedication, professionalism, and passion for education have always been unwavering, regardless of any personal pursuits I may have.”
Brown claims that her rap avocation was the only reason she was fired. “The first meeting was with my dean and my principal and they were just telling me, ‘Hey, a parent said that they’ve seen your social media, and that you’re a bad influence because you’re a rapper,'” Brown told reporters.
For the purpose of this post, I’m going to assume Brown is telling us everything relevant. Maybe there were other legitimate issues that led to her dismissal. Maybe her rap lyrics glorified crime, sexual abuse or other behavior that rap and hip-hop frequently seem to be encouraging. I am also assuming that her contract didn’t explicitly forbid other jobs or activities without prior approval.
With those caveats, however, I completely agree with Brown, who says, “Music is part of the culture. We’re from Motown, this is what we do. So it’s not like it’s unheard of, it’s the culture. When you look like me, you just understand it a little bit … better.” She’s hiring a lawyer, and if she can show that a teacher who had a second career playing the accordion or singing “My Way” would not be viewed as a “distraction,” she has a strong case of racial discrimination.
I must state my own bias here, as someone who maintained a double life in the theater from the beginning of my working life until very recently. Several times I found myself being subjected to criticism and even warnings from superiors who questioned my dedication and the distribution of my time, thought and energy because I was writing, performing and directing theatrical productions. In each case, my response could be summarized as, “Bite me: this is none of your business.”
One particularly enjoyable confrontation was with an executive director who was constantly promoting charity events under the auspices of his church. “I see,” I said when he questioned the time I spent with my drama muse. “Can you explain to me why my theatrical activities on my own time are less legitimate, more distracting or in any way distinguishable from your church activities, other than the fact that you are interested in the latter and I am interested in the former?” I continued, “We’re both lawyers, so I’d be fascinated to hear that explanation, if you can muster it.”
He couldn’t. He turned deep red in the face, and walked away. Yeah, he fired me eventually anyway, but he knew I had him, the asshole.
Ethics Alarms 
Ah, this was the one i was going to say. If I had to guess, its likely because of this song.
More where it came from.
So maybe there is, however, a “Teacher suggestively dry humping the air inches from a camera singing songs describing a wide range of sex acts Principle” at play here.
Like it or not, that’s the genre, and the genre is “art.” I have six channels on my satellite radio featuring that crap. The assertion that this is cultural discrimination is valid, don’t you think?
Pornography is “art”….
…But rap isn’t pornography.
That’s like talking about a painting of people simulating sex acts and saying “but painting isn’t pornography”.
Or videos of people having sex and objecting “they’re just videos” as if you can’t see what they are videos of.
Or like books about graphic sex acts being kept out of children’s libraries.
“But the Times New Roman font isn’t pornography what’s the problem?”
But it’s not. We have to make those distinctions. Otherwise you end up draping marble nudes in public buildings. “David” isn’t pornographic.
“David” isn’t dry humping the air singing about what he plans do with his dangly bits either.
*but* there is room for a separate discussion about whether or not wealthy perverts from 400 years ago are any different from wealthy perverts now- and just because we’ve been forced to get used to jarring nudity in art doesn’t make it ethical to have had that done to us for generations.
Is there something fundamentally wrong with cultural discrimination if a culture is awful enough?
If the culture doesn’t include illegal conduct. Hate the sin, never the sinner, as Darrow said (only half meaning it.) Today’s rap is yesterdays rock ‘n roll (named for sex acts) and jazz, both of which were declared immoral and corrupting by white society.
“If the culture doesn’t include illegal conduct.”
This is rationalization #4.
No, you know it’s not. Declaring a culture than an employee belongs to inherently intolerable is itself a unethical and probably illegal. By that standard, schools should fire all devout Muslims. No doubt about it: the African American culture is in many ways toxic and the values therein need to be avoided in some cases. But if you can fire a black teacher for having a child out of wedlock (as over 70% of black womne do), you certainly can’t fire one for performing the same group’s favorite music.
1) I can certainly declare aspects of some cultures as promoting unethical conduct and therefore being unethical.
2) it also follows then that some cultures may be (and are) more unethical than others.
3) if an employee engages in unethical conduct promoting unethical attitudes and motivations and practices *in contradiction* to the values the employer is specifically selling, “it’s my culture” isn’t a defense.
If an employee of an organization that specifically were to advance the ideals of a family built around married parents- a teacher having a kid out of wedlock is clearly violating the objectives of the employer.
And you can’t say “well my culture encourages this destructive behavior!!!”
But schools are supposed to advance exactly that norm. And should.
At some point there’s a line between what the only fans teachers do that get fired and a video of a teacher playing a cello.
I feel like simulating sex acts and singing explicitly about sex acts, “art” or not, is certainly on the only fans teacher side of the line.
Same side of the line, but in the realm of speech, and a LOT closer to the center line. There is room for enlightened disagreement on how much margin should be allowed. I directed the Three Penny Opera while employed with the conservative US Chamber. The show celebrates a sociopathic serial killer. Playing the killer? Singing the songs that mock conventional morality?
The difference is you weren’t a teacher in school.
Not all art is appropriate to all circumstances.
The fact the teacher doesn’t see this as a) cultural rot, b) willful blindness by someone who should know better if she’s that good a teacher, speaks volumes.
If she were singing songs about graphically killing and beating people she doesn’t like, would it still classify as art suitable to pursue as a teacher?
Just look at the violence in middle and high schools of late. The culture of violence in that genre of music is like none other in modern history. It’s on display daily in all those schools, no big deal for the teacher to sing about it in her off time.
The culture of “free” sexuality is taught on a one way basis in all our schools, and when the deleterious aspects are brought up, well those people would prefer we still held slaves! And they want to do away with free expression!
It’s a tired trope to say when we harken back to earlier times in our culture where these things were frowned upon and shunned that we must also celebrate all the ills and evils that prior time held.
She’s free to do whatever she wants, but the people in the community also have a right to expect those they employ to teach their kids be held to a higher standard of consciousness, ethics, and expression.
And producing art that perpetuates acceptance of behaviors that are destructive to the community at large while “teaching kids a way to better their lives” is unethical.
Firing her is ethical and justified.
Precisely.
No, the comparison with jazz and rock is exactly appropriate. Both are African American musical genres that wee rejected in horror by white middle class Americans as glorifying sex and immorality. Hip-Hop and rap have been the dominant form of popular music now for what, 20 years? One whole major chuck of the population views it as their own, though it has many white fans (and performers as well.) The same may be said of twerking, which I personally view as ugly and disgusting, but its still not pornography, and is close enough to the cultural mainstream to escape a NTP-type verdict.
If there isn’t a clause in her contract that lets the school do that, I’ll be shocked if she doesn’t win a discrimination suit. And she’ll deserve to.
This isn’t an argument.
Because society irrationally rejected non-objectionable *art forms* in the past (even if some of the actual content could be objectionable) doesn’t mean society’s rejection of reasonably rejectable *content* is wrong.
She’s not fired for being a rapper. She’s fired for content promoting the very anti-values the school is desperately trying to steer its students away from.
The fact you keep focusing on rap in general and not her explicitly objectionable content means you have to see that to some level.
The argument is that white middle class majorities routinely freak out at music that arises from the black subculture, and that’s an emotional rather than a rational response. The freak-out over rap has just lasted longer, that’s all.
Incidentally, I’ve been forcing myself to listen to the rap and Hip-Hop channels, because I don’t like being culturally out of the loop. So far, it’s not working…
I feel like the freak out here is about a teacher dry humping the air inches from the camera in extremely short and extreme tight shorts and singing throughly explicit lyrics about what to do with her vagina.
I don’t think the issue is rap.
Based on my research of late, MW, that IS rap.
“Hop Hop and rap have been the dominant form of popular music now for what, 20 years? One whole major chuck of the population views it as their own, though it has many white fans (and performers as well.) The same may be said of twerking, which I personally view as ugly and disgusting, but it’s still not pornography, and is close enough to the cultural mainstream to escape a NTP-type verdict.”
This is a variation of rationalization 1A “everybody does it” in the form of “a lot of people like it so it must be ok”
Did I write “Hop Hop’? Better fix that…
Yeah, that’s the sort of “culture” that our kids need to see and emulate. Any public institution that can’t fire an employee for that crap needs a stronger “conditions of employment” contract.
Not my cup of tea but I think it is different than only fans spectacles.
One problem I do have is the routine use of the word nigga. That might create problems in the classroom if white kids start repeating the lyrics. With that said, the termination is ethically wrong as an initial punishment especially in light of only one complaint is provided with no evidence of actual classroom disruption.
Well the students who found the teacher on only fans certainly showed up to class and paid rapt attention.
Define “disruption”.
I did not think this would cause as much division as it has. But, having said that, there is some food for thought.
The problem in the Naked Teacher Principle is that seeing your teacher naked in her extra-curricular activities can undermine her stature or gravitas as an authority figure.
Here, we have a teacher whose extracurricular activity may bolster her reputation with her students.
But, the objections here seem to be about the content of the work produced. It may be difficult to analogize this properly with other genres. But, if the objection is the sexual gestures or the language used, it would seem to be that the appropriate analogies would go something like this:
A teacher that writes bawdy romance novels like Danielle Steele;
A teacher that writes psychological or horror thrillers like Steven King;
A teacher that paints nudes or even the occasional orgy scene;
A teacher that writes a historical novel along the lines of Huck Finn;
Or writes books like Lolita or Tropic of Cancer;
Or writes screenplays like Quentin Tarantino;
Would we complain if she were performing death metal songs, or goth metal, black metal, or any of the many variations that have earned a sliver of a category under the umbrella of heavy metal?
If a teacher were even a bit successful in any of the above-undertakings, you might say it is to her credit as an accomplished artist or performer.
I did not listen to any of the songs or watch the videos and don’t generally care for the genre. However, being an accomplished artist in your spare time would seem to enhance your authority and credibility.
Because Naked Teachers accomplish the exact opposite, it has earned itself its own principle.
-Jut
That’s the crux of the matter, which I managed to gloss over: the reason the NTP is valid is because such cinduct can fairly be construed as undermining the teacher’s image, respect and effectiveness as a role mod and teacher in her students’ eyes. In this case, the conduct almost certainly enhances all of the above.
Sorry to be late to the party…
If I might use a term that was au courant in my grad school days, this situation is vexed. As Jack suggests, the music listened to by adolescents and post-adolescents, whatever period, whatever style, tends to want to push boundaries: it will condone or even glorify violence or drug use or promiscuity or whatever the dominant (adult) society doesn’t like. The fact that the octogenarian Rolling Stones are still trying to fit into that subversive model says rather a lot.
It’s also true that rap/hip-hop is largely but not exclusively about sex (as opposed to romance), and that the performers and audience are largely but not exclusively black. So we get more complications there.
It strikes me that there’s another consideration here, related to the notion of performativity. Even when playing a role, performers in porn are often really playing themselves, and attract viewers for precisely that reason. More to the point, the video is presented as something that could actually happen in real life, no matter how far-fetched it actually is. A rap video is not: from the instrumental backing to the back-up singer/dancers, it’s clear that we’re watching a performance rather than reality. That is, perhaps paradoxically, rappers are taking on another personality—they are, in a sense, “not themselves”—in a way that porn actors are not.
There are other elements at play here, too: for example, we’re talking about two simultaneous careers: one as Ms. Brown the history teacher and one as Drippin’ Honey the rapper. It’s not like someone dug up old videos of her life before teaching. There is, however, nothing to suggest that the two jobs interfere with each other in the slightest. It’s certainly not similar to the case I read about a couple of years ago in which a young teacher was fired for making porn films. She responded with a series of apparently very popular porn videos in which she played a teacher being fired for making porn videos (!); she seduces everyone from students to the principal who fires her. (I confess that I haven’t seen the film, so I can’t tell you if the character thereby gets to keep her job.)
I’d say the legality of Brown’s actions and the possibility (probability?) that her rap performances might actually improve her reputation with students are borderline irrelevant, although I certainly agree with JutGory’s general point. But it isn’t Domonique Brown who’s saying words like “fuck” and “pussy”; it’s Drippin’ Honey. Ms. Brown should no more be criticized for that than a professor should be for saying the word “nigger” if they’re quoting from a play by Athol Fugard.
I’ve never been completely on board even with the NTP, but I don’t think this situation rises even to that level. I understand the impulse, but I wouldn’t have fired her. Besides, anonymous complaints piss me off.
Besides, anonymous complaints piss me off.
A perfect coda, Curmie.
I agree with most of your points. I don’t like rap/hip-hop very much but I am willing to accept it as an art form or form of expression. She should not have been fired over this.
jvb
I might have fired her if I were her boss. When you are a teacher, on contract, you are a salaried professional. As a salaried, full-time, professional, you are NOT ALLOWED to take any other jobs that aren’t specifically approved by your administration. If I take a consulting contract while on-contract and don’t have the approval of my administration to take it before I begin, I can be fired, even with tenure. Usually, only side-jobs that enhance your professional standing or directly applicable to your job are approved. A music teacher might be allowed to work in a jazz band on the weekend, while a history teacher would not. The history teacher, however, might be allowed to work on a history book while the music teacher would not. Even in graduate school, I wasn’t allowed to take a job not approved by my department. I know a high school teacher who came really close to getting fired for taking a job on the weekends without approval.