A Texas teacher who was suspended from her job for showing her students a photo of her then-fiance has been awarded a $100,000 settlement from the school district, Buzzfeed News reports. Stacy Bailey, a two-time teacher of the year at Charlotte Anderson Elementary, is said to have “received complaints from parents” after displaying a photo in class showing herself with her same-sex partner, who she referred to as her “future wife.” Days later, the Mansfield Independent School District suspended her.
- Apparently, gay people shouldn’t exist. According to a press release from the school district announcing Bailey’s suspension, “Parents have the right to control the conversation with their children, especially as it relates to religion, politics, sex/sexual orientation, etc.” I suppose that means that LGBTQI+ people should have to hide their identities and pretend they don’t exist until parents decide they want to introduce their kids to reality?
- Bailey’s lawyers say only one parent complained. Despite the fact that the school district tried to misrepresent the situation, Bailey’s lawyer, Giana Ortiz, said the suspension was based on one complaint from a disgruntled (and clearly homophobic) parent. “MISD has resorted to a press release, misstating the facts and attempting to paint Stacy as lacking judgment or moral compass. The fact is that she was placed on leave after years of exemplary work based on a single parent complaint,” Ortiz said in a statement.
- Incidentally, Bailey requested LGBTQI+ policy reviews. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a month prior to her suspension, Bailey had emailed the school district requesting that teachers be allowed to “begin a discussion” about introducing policies to protect LGBTQI+ individuals and avoid discrimination. “We have many LGBTQ teachers, students, and families in this district. We deserve the right to feel protected by our district,” she wrote in the email. The school district swears that’s not why she was suspended, but what a coincidence! They did, however, say that she had no right to discuss gay artists (she’s an art teacher) or artists’ same-sex relationships with students. God forbid these kids learn that there are gay people in the world!
- Bailey rightly filed a discrimination suit against Mansfield ISD and won. After being awarded $100,000, she revealed that she’ll be donating $10,000 of the money to a charity which helps LGBTQI+ students in schools. “If you are a school district that thinks you can bully a gay teacher out of their job, I hope you remember my name and I hope you think twice,” Bailey said in a press conference following the settlement announcement. Good for her!
