N.Y. Dept of Education BS: High School Counselor Fired For Being a Lingerie Model 17 Years Ago

 

From Huff Po: Tiffani Webb, a "highly regarded" guidance counselor at a New York City high school, is suing the city Department of Education to get her job back after being fired for racy photos, the New York Post reports.

The 37-year-old counselor at Murry Bergtraum High School for Business Careers says she was fired after 12 years last December -- just before earning tenure -- when photos of her wearing lingerie and bikinis from her previous career as a model resurfaced on the Internet. Webb says the scantily clad images were taken more than 17 years ago, and that she disclosed her former job when first hired by the city as an educator.

"The inappropriate photos were accessible to impressionable adolescents," a chancellor's committee ruled, according to the Post. "That behavior has a potentially adverse influence on her ability to counsel students and be regarded as a role model."

Webb disagrees, citing her positive track record and respect from parents and students. She is fighting to be reinstated and seeks back pay and punitive damages, claiming wrongful termination and sex discrimination. Meanwhile, she has changed her name and has taken a teaching position in New Jersey.

Webb also isn't the only educator to face consequences from a past career. California science teacher Stacie Halas was placed on administrative leave in April for a former career as a porn actress. She appealed the dismissal from her post as a seventh- and eight-grade teacher after students and teachers reported a pornographic film Halas appears in from a career that spanned years before she was hired to teach.

Halas and Webb are among a number of educators caught in the crossfire of a nationwide debate on teachers' rights beyond campus. About 20 percent of teachers are moonlighting in second jobs as their salaries have taken a hit due to massive budget cuts. That figure is up from about 11 percent in 1981.

Educators are increasingly trolling "help wanted" ads and are taking on second jobs as bartenders, waitresses, school bus drivers and the like. And teachers say they do it because they need the money.

via www.huffingtonpost.com

 

 

Comments

[Skittles]

This is definitely a sign that the labor laws in this country are severely broken. What these women did years before they started teaching should have absolutely no bearing on their current job. Especially when nothing they did was illegal. This is no better than companies who get away with firing employees over what they do with their time off or write on their facebook pages. We as a country seem to be moving to a point where you are owned by the company you work for and that isn't right at all.

[The Last Archimedean]

That's absolutely ridiculous. I hope she wins about 10 million dollars and her triumph is so highly pulicized that no school district in the country will even investigate what someone did to make money 15 years ago for fear of being hit with a similar lawsuit.

And yes, we need a major overhaul of labor laws, stripping all rights away from the corporations and making it so you can't fire ANYONE unless they actually are either incompetent or a crook [or harass other workers].

[Book Baby]

This stuff is NOT illegal. WTH are they firing these ladies? They have done NOTHING wrong.

[perky]

A teacher in Georgia was fired because she was holding wine in a photo: http://winecountrymom.blogs.santarosamom.com/13037/teacher-facebook-photo/

She was 24 years old
She was not drunk
She was on vacation
She was not on school property
Her profile was private
And they still fired her.

I don't' know if I have ever mentioned this, but I have a degree in elementary education (I don't teach because there are no jobs to be had)But I know of several other cases like this. Good teachers who for whatever reasons the school board wants to get ride of so they find a picture of them and fire them over it.

One teacher had a picture of her at the beach. She was in a very modest one piece,but you could see part of a tattoo on her upper thigh. They fired her not for the bathing suit photo, but because she did not disclose that she had a tattoo!!! She took it to court and won, but that they even tried. And they only way she could afford to take it to court was that her father was a lawyer.

A friend of mine is in her 30's was teaching for about 2 years, and had several run ins with her principal. They disagreed on many subjects. Well while this friend was on vacation in Germany a friend snapped a picture of her at dinner with other friends. There was 3 glasses of wine on the table. None of them was in front of her. She doesn't like wine. She wasn't drinking that night, and yet because she was with people who was drinking she was fired. As the principal put it, "how could she prove she wasn't drinking...."
This new teacher was so feed up with all the B.S. that teachers go through that she decided that it wasn't worth it and went into a new career.

[Grendus the Former Self Check Guy]

The only one I can at least see the point of is the former pornstar. It's not so much if it's legal or illegal, she's still supposed to be a role model for the children and, well, nobody wants their kid to grow up to do porn. Not saying I agree with them, but I can actually understand some of the outrage from parents of children still at an impressionable age.

Lingerie model though... that's not really all that shocking anymore - ffs they put that stuff up on billboards and mall signs. TBH, this sounds more like an easy out for the district to keep her from getting tenure rather than an actual case. It's just controversial enough that they hoped she wouldn't fight the ruling. Seems like more of a symptom of cutting the education budget and the lean economic times, or perhaps a personal grudge, than a moral outrage. But maybe that's just me, I always figure self interest is a more likely motivation than misplaced moral indignation.

[derrr]

-"The inappropriate photos were accessible to impressionable adolescents," a chancellor's committee ruled, according to the Post. "That behavior has a potentially adverse influence on her ability to counsel students and be regarded as a role model."-

Really? That committee has no place on earth. Judgemental pricks. It has no adverse affect on her ability to counsel, and actually having been through shit makes it easier to relate and assist people.

[Box Office Wench]

Fired just before getting tenure, huh? That's what this is really about. Administrations absolutely hate giving tenure and will do anything to disqualify someone from receiving it (this is also true at the college/university level.) She did absolutely nothing wrong-- hell, she even disclosed her modelling career before her hire-- and I hope she wins big in court.

[The Worst]

I'm sorry, since when is modeling a poor career choice?? Sure there's a societal taboo about porn, I get that, but modeling? Even lingerie - is Giselle Bundchen really a social pariah? This is ridiculous, and I can't wait to see her take them for all they've got.

[NC Tony]

I agree with Grendus and Box Office Wench, it's awfully convenient that they fired her right before she was eligible for tenure. Employers, no matter where they are seem to be looking for any excuse to fire someone, even seemingly making shit up as they go along if they don't have a legit reason to get rid of someone.

"The inappropriate photos were accessible to impressionable adolescents," a chancellor's committee ruled, according to the Post. "That behavior has a potentially adverse influence on her ability to counsel students and be regarded as a role model."

Yeah, well it didn't seem to have "a potentially adverse influence on her ability to counsel students and be regarded as a role model." for 12 years you assholes. I have a feeling if they hadn't have found out about her former career, they would have found another reason to fire her.

I like the others hope she wins in court and takes them for as much money as she can get.

[Bored at the Bookstore]

Anyone here old enough to remember the song, "Harper Valley PTA"? Where the widowed mom was chastised for wearing short skirts, dating, drinking beer, etc.? So she went to the next PTA meeting, and said:

"Well, there's Bobby Taylor sittin' there and seven times he's asked me for a date
Mrs. Taylor sure seems to use a lot of ice whenever he's away
And Mr. Baker, can you tell us why your secretary had to leave this town?
And shouldn't widow Jones be told to keep her window shades all pulled completely down?
Well, Mr. Harper couldn't be here 'cause he stayed too long at Kelly's Bar again
And if you smell Shirley Thompson's breath, you'll find she's had a little nip of gin
Then you have the nerve to tell me you think that as a mother I'm not fit
Well, this is just a little Peyton Place and you're all Harper Valley hypocrites."

Same thing. Coupled with the almost-tenure timing.

[perky]

@Bored at the Bookstore, that song is on my workout play list!

[Jami]

Okay, let me get this straight. She was fired because of a legal job she no longer does? But when I was in school my 6th grade teacher who told me every day how evil I was because I bathed on a daily basis and used antiperspirant, who destroyed the self esteem of so many students that our jr. high teacher noticed everyone from her class had behaviorial and grade problems, got to keep her job, just get demoted to 4th grade. And my old high school drama teacher who openly admits she only casts popular students, not talented ones, gets tenure?

Oh, and then there was the principal of my newphew's old grade school. Gets arrested for molestation of students, police file mysteriously disapears, so the school lets him come back, but as a teacher. That's right, somehow the police "lost" the file with all the evidence and testimony against this pervert. So they let me work with kids again.

And she's fired for once being a model? GAH! Stupid schools!

[Art & Amaretto]

This reminds me of the idiots suing detergent companies for making dishwashing pellets "that look like candy." Maybe you should pay more attention to what your child puts in their mouth -- or looks up online -- than blaming someone else. Seriously. She's a grown woman and can do what she likes. If your kid comes across it, that's you and your kid's problem, not the model's!

Also, this is a direct result of hundreds of years of stringent sexist moral codes for female teachers. At some point it occurred to the Powers That Be that having a semi-literate workforce might not be a bad idea. But how to educate these children of poverty? Professional male tutors certainly weren't going to work for peanuts in "public schools." So they farmed the task out to widowed and unmarried women, paid them a pittance, and expected them to act like nuns. Times have changed (some), but somehow the standards for and attitudes about teachers haven't. It's frankly disgusting.

[Pagemaster]

Slut-shaming pure and simple.

We see models, porn stars, and strippers as being all of that BEFORE we see them as being just regular women. These people are erasing these teachers humanity as women and marketing them as just underwear models or porn actresses. As if they're teaching Math class in thongs and stilettos!