Fewer than 100 years ago, teachers were subject to the "employment at will" doctrine which, simply put, means that the employer employed and the employee agreed to accept employment at the will of either party. The employer could fire or the employee could quit "at will" absent a contract of employment which provided otherwise. Few employers provided their employees with such protection. One need only read the novels of Charles Dickens for a description of the rights of the working class.
While the law treated employer and employee as equals in the bargaining process, the reality was and is that the employer can ordinarily replace an employee with relative ease. But for the employee, termination may be devastating. Gradually teachers have won employment rights through collective action -- bargaining, lobbying state and national legislatures, and in the courts.
Before we begin our discussion of what teachers' rights are, we should describe what they were -- and not too long ago.
For many years, teachers could be fired for joining a professional organization or labor union. In 1892, the Massachusetts Supreme Court held in a case where a policeman was fired for joining the local fraternal order of police, "[T]he petitioner may have a constitutional right to talk politics . . . but no right to be a policeman." The principle was applied to teachers.
In 1965, the Utah Supreme Court upheld the right of a school board to fire a teacher because she became pregnant. One teacher was fired because he lived 22 miles from the school where he was a counselor which was 11 miles outside the district's boundaries.
Teachers historically have been held to a standard of personal conduct that might have suffocated Caesar's wife. For example, until World War I, "[d]ancing, card-playing, smoking, drinking, theater-going, and Sabbath-breaking were still regarded by multitudes as sinful . . . ." The teacher was expected in all these matters to be exemplary.
In 1883 Josiah Royce wrote that a teacher "may find all of a sudden that his non-attendance at church or the fact that he drinks beer, or rides a bicycle, is considered of more moment than his power to instruct." Even before he got into difficulties over teaching evolution, John Scopes was criticized in Dayton, Ohio for cigarette smoking and dancing. Continue >>