Does Jendra Loeffelman, the eighth-grade Crystal City teacher who was fired for voicing her controversial views on interracial marriage, have a lawsuit against the school district that terminated her? Though some commentators are suggesting that Loeffelman is a bigot who had it coming, I suspect that the courts might understand things differently.

Some cases:

In 1997, a fifth-grade Kentucky schoolteacher was fired for teaching her students about hemp farming during a school unit on agriculture. She sued, saying her First Amendment rights had been violated. Though her case was dismissed by a lower court, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the court had erred, stating unanimously that schoolteachers retain their First Amendment rights in the classroom. The case will go to trial later this year.

Here is what the teacher's lawyer had to say about her civil liberties:ìTeachers donít lose their First Amendment rights because theyíre teachers. Thereís not a special rule for teachers ó not even fifth-grade ones. ... The most terrifying aspects of the lower courtís ruling and of the school boardís argument was that they seemed to assert that school officials have complete control over classroom teachersí every utterance and that they could take retaliatory action if, as in this case, what the teacher said upset the community.î

Some have implied that it is unreasonable to invoke the First Amendment in Loeffelman's case because her students are only in eighth-grade, and are therefore too young to cope with her opinions. The Kentucky case suggests that this is a spurious argument. If ten-year-olds can handle learning about industrial hemp, thirteen-year-olds can deal with a teacher's views on interracial marriage.

Another one: In 1997, a Utah high school teacher was ordered by her school district not to discuss her homosexuality. She was also fired from her job coaching the school's champion volleyball team after a student asked her whether she was a lesbian, and she answered "yes." Backed by the ACLU, the teacher sued, claiming that the school district violated her First Amendment rights when it ordered her not to tell anyone she was gay, and that it violated her right to equal protection when it fired her from her coaching job. She won.

This case, like Loeffelman's, involves a teacher being punished for truthfully answering direct questions from students. The beliefs conveyed by those answers--politically apposite as they are--then became the subject of disciplinary action. Though the one teacher came off as a bigot and the other as a victim of homophobia, they were both on the wrong end of the same type of intolerance. My guess is that Loeffelman, like the Utah teacher, could well sue for viewpoint discrimination.

Last one: in 1991, a Texas teacher was accused of racism by a twelve-year-old student. The accusation grew out of a discussion she had with her students about the importance of completing school work. During that discussion, she made reference to the high rate of dropouts among Hispanic children. Though the teacher is herself Hispanic, she was publicly denounced as racist by the student's mother and by LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens). Unable to continue teaching, she resigned and sued for defamation. in 1996, she won a $36,550 award against LULAC and the slanderous mother. Loeffelman has been fired for expressing her views; in the process, she has been labeled a racist. Even if she successfully appeals her termination, she is ruined and her career in Crystal City is over. Does she have a defamation case? That remains to be seen.