A Missouri schoolteacher has been fired for voicing controversial opinions. Last fall, a student in Jendra Loeffelman's eighth-grade class asked her what she thought about interracial marriage. The question grew out of a discussion about an assignment the student had been given in another class. Loeffelman answered honestly, telling her class that she disapproved of interracial marriage because it produced children who are likely to be persecuted. Some of Loeffelman's students are of mixed racial origins.

And thus was the witch hunt begun. At hearings conducted this month, both students and parents (who weren't even there!) testified that Leoffelman also said that interracial students tended to be dirty and that interracial couples should be sterilized in order to prevent them from having children. Loeffelman does not deny telling her class that she opposes interracial marriage and fears for the children of such unions. But she does deny the additional allegations--some of which, it appears, were made by people who could not possibly know what she said that day. Loeffelman was found guilty of intentionally violating school district policies on harassment and discrimination, and was summarily fired.

This is what Loeffelman gets for honestly responding to a student's question. Loeffelman was not using her classroom to proselytize; she was not attempting to indoctrinate her students; she was not conducting her class in a discriminatory manner. What she was doing was treating a student's difficult question with the respect all such questions deserve: instead of deflecting the question (and thus teaching her students that they are not worthy of straight answers) or refusing to address the question (and thus teaching her students that it is morally wrong to seek answers) or parroting a politically correct position that is not her own (and thus teaching her students that the only proper response to tough questions is to mouth institutionalized platitudes), Loeffelman spoke her mind. She had to have known her comments would touch a nerve or two. But she decided that it was more important to address her students' questions frankly than it was to pander to their--or their parents'--sensibilities. For this, she lost her job after thirteen years of service. The Crystal City school board should be proud of itself for so deftly conflating honesty with harassment and for treating matters of private conscience as the proper purview of discrimination law.

Loeffelman may have the last laugh if she chooses to pursue the matter, however. Her lawyer contends that the school district cannot fire her unless it can show that she knew about its harassment and discrimination policies and that she deliberately violated them: "They must have proof she knew what the policy was - and they can't just say you can't offend anyone - and that she intentionally violated the policies." They don't have proof, he says. And without proof, they won't have a case if Loeffelman wants to take them to court.