Sarai Jimenez, a special education teaching intern at in Pajaro Valley School District’s Watsonville, California-based MacQuiddy Elementary, endorsed the presence of I.C.E. officers in her town in a comment on Facebook last month.
“Yay!!! We need ICE in Watsonville!! It’s been getting out of hand,” Jimenez wrote, as you can see above. But the parents in Pajaro Valley Unified School District, where 84% of students are Hispanic and, given California’s sanctuary state aspirations, might belong to families with one or more illegal immigrants, considered Jimenez’s support for ICE….that is, enforcement of U.S. law…unconscionable. Many complained, and Jimenez was placed on leave from her job in Pajaro Valley School District. It appears that she will be fired, if she hasn’t been already.
“You can’t just tell the world how you feel and not expect repercussions from people because of how they feel about I.C.E.,” local parent Jorge Guerrero said. If I were awake completely, which I’m not, I would compose several alternate versions of this statement with provocative substitutes for “I.C.E.”
Jimenez tried to save her job by groveling a politician-style denial rather than an apology,“I’m sorry that the comment was taken out of context,” she told reporters. “But my actions speak so much louder than all those hateful bullies’ words.” The hateful bullies are the ones who bombarded her with threats and insults until she took down her Facebook page. “You are a shameful disgraceful disgusting woman,” one critic wrote.
Predictably, though apparently not by the interning teacher, the school administrators sided with the bullies if not their methods (although firing someone for supporting law enforcement is a lot more harmful than insulting her).
MacQuiddy Elementary Principal Sara Pearman said in a statement that Jimenez’s comment “does not reflect the values” of the school or district.
Hmmmm…
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day:
Is it ethical to fire Jimenez for expressing support for law enforcement officials doing their jobs?
I think this is a close call. Some points:
Ethics Alarms 
#3 she never said she hated them. To contrary she demonstrated her ability to rise above the reasons to hate them.
Yes it’s unethical to fire her. But nothing can be done about it and if it could, it wouldn’t help her situation.
I imagine many people were trapped in similar situations when other times Democrat dominated areas engaged in mass secessionist and insurrectionist actions.
This is actually why the Department of Justice was formed. Their mission was to provide justice to people denied justice because the local government was dominated by Democrats.
Important history lesson.
Still barring a massive lawsuit that pays her well, there will be no local remedy. It will take too long to convince a rebel community they must collectively change their hearts and minds in order to be part of civilized society again.
The district will have a hard time justifying the firing. I imagine an attorney (if she can find one willing to take the case) would easily find political postings of the opposite political leanings from numerous teachers at the school that weren’t punished. If your school allows students to wear Planned Parenthood t-shirts, gay pride t-shirts, etc, you can’t disallow a student from wearing a “MAGA” t-shirt. The schools are supposed to be public schools and support all students, not just the ones the administration likes.
2. This seems too close to Rationalization #36: Victim Blindness, or “They/He/She/ You should have seen it coming.”
3. I do think there’s a difference between supporting the enforcement of laws which may not affect how the teacher interacts with students and publicly calling some of her students stupid which most certainly affects how she interacts with them.
My vote is that it is not ethical to suspend or fire her over public support of law enforcement. Her comments do not reflect on her ability to do her job unobjectively. This is pure thoughtcrime aimed at conservatives/Republicans/noncompliant Democrats that people, such as my Trump-Deranged sister, claim has never happened and is only the practice of the current administration toward liberals/progressives.
Here’s a story that has struck me: Surprise council demands answers about ICE warehouse
DHS has acquired a warehouse in Surprise, Arizona with the intention of using it as a detention facility. The Surprise city council is all up in arms, as are Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego, Arizona’s two senators. What an upside-down world we live in where U.S. senators are making every effort to obstruct the federal government from enforcing U.S. law within their state. Surprise is on the (north) west side of Phoenix, which probably has the largest concentration of illegals of anywhere in the metropolitan area. It is also ground zero for massive fulfillment facilities that are nowhere near any residential areas.
Of course, during the Obama administration, Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio was enjoined by the District Court from attempting to round up illegals on the theory immigration enforcement was strictly within the purview of the federal government. Clearly, the Obama administration was simply intent on preventing immigration laws from being enforced.
Her surname is Jimenez? Is she being punished for going off the reservation?
Maybe she thought she wouldn’t receive much flack because of her surname. I believe there’s a strong population of Hispanics who very much support ICE and immigration enforcement efforts. It may even be that a majority of Hispanics in her district actually agree with her, which is why she was so ebullient on Facebook about ICE arriving. It may only be a small, outspoken minority that is anti-ICE and pressuring school officials to fire her. Don’t forget Rules for Radicals #1:
The people who are anti-ICE overall are a very small slice of the public, but the level of noise they make, and the backing they have with the all the right institutions (education, media, law) makes them seem a much larger group than they really are.
There is a big distinction between this teacher and the one fired because she called her students and their parents stupid. This teacher stated support for I.C.E. and federal enforcement of immigration laws. That position has no impact on whether she can teach her students as required by the curriculum and the school’s mandates. The latter teacher posted something that clearly puts her objectivity and fairness into question. That has a direct impact on her qualifications as a teacher and has an impact on the school. Firing the latter was justifiedl; firing the former may not be, assuming there is no contractual provision that controls the teacher’s off-campus behavior (this is not a Naked Teacher’s Assistant rule).
jvb
JVB,
Don’t try to argue for why these are different. Take a moment and see how closely you make the two cases seem similar. For example, obviously Jiminez can’t perform her job impartially because her pro-ICE stance means she already has a preexisting bias against students that she judges, correctly or not, to be here illegally. Could she be objective and fair with a student she strongly suspects is illegal, for no better reason than his surname is Jimine… wait, I mean Martinez?
The trick (for the radicals) is to craft the message in such a way that it seems that a standard is being violated. Any attempt to explain otherwise can then be dismissed as spin or being disingenuous. And if too many level heads seem to be prevailing in the rational discourse, simply abandon that tactic and move on to another tactic elsewhere. If Jiminez wins in some future lawsuit against the school, blackout any mention of the lawsuit or even the controversy that led to her firing.
I’m a big fan of this blog, but… 1. Are you saying Hinderaker is wrong? 2. Are you saying Jimenez was wrong? Are you saying that because Rosa Parks was in Alabama she shouldn’t have tried to sit in the front of the bus? “What did she expect would happen?!” 3. Are you saying that Jimenez compromised her ability to teach in the same way that a teacher who condemns crime might make children of parents in prison uncomfortable? I commend the commenters for trying to make sense of this post.
This is a tough one. Social media’s inherent problems of context and propaganda means folks are filling in the blanks what this post means–what is “out of hand”? Is it the shell trucking companies, the unlicensed street food vendors, the hit and runs, or the influx of ghost student transfers from nearby HHS-funded “Learing” centers?
Of course the only possibility of the “things” being out of hand is her students!
Firing her means endorsing the propaganda demonizing law enforcement. Keeping her employed means retaining someone lacking discernment, but perhaps that’s balanced out by being non-conformist.
Overall, without a more clear subject of the post, I don’t think it’s fair to read it as animosity against minors that she may be directly entrusted with–but any parent that feels so ought to have full disclosure and an alternate if they feel it does represent that.