Iowa Teacher Regarding Social Media Posts

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I want people to look at things from as thoughtful
of a perspective as possible. And the only thing that
I can tell you is that today it just got
to be real careful. It can really get you if

(00:21):
you're not, if you're not cognizant of who's seeing what
you're posting, you deciding that you are just yeah, I'm
totally willy nilly, totally willing to you know, play around
with this, mess around with this and potentially lose my job.

(00:42):
You have to be willing to understand those consequences. We
saw what that reaction was for a lot of people
with the Charlie Kirk situation. And Melissa Crook is an
English teacher, or was an English teacher from Creston, the
Kreston Community School District, which is not super far away
the right over there on the Iowa side in southwest Iowa.

(01:04):
And she said in a lawsuit that the superintendent and
the school board messed around and violated her First Amendment rights,
and she wants an injunction blocking her dismissal. And she
has citing numerous political and religious social media posts that
she says was made by the superintendent of Christian Community

(01:25):
School district Darren Stinder over the last five years and
by the school board president Don g So. These posts
that were cited from the social media accounts allegedly questioned
the rights of immigrants, voiced support for Republicans for office

(01:46):
in Iowa and in the United States as the level
of president, and called people who were Democrats snowflakes, people
who were critics of Donald Trump snake yes. And the response,
at least in public from the superintendent, Darren Stinder said

(02:08):
he will not have comment on the social media posts,
saying they are personnel matter. They are a personnel matter
handled by the school board, and did not comment on
the lawsuit. Now, whether or not this is gonna work,
We're going to have to see in a court of law,
Like is what's good for the goose the good for
the gander or is this a completely different thing. Here
is the post on September tenth, twenty twenty five by

(02:29):
Melissa Crook, the teacher who has since been dismissed by
Preston Community School District. This was she said, he is
a terrible human being, terrible. I do not wish deeth
on anyone, but him not being here is a blessing.
That was the social media post that was made by

(02:50):
English teacher Melissa Crook, who was a teacher in Creston.
It doesn't sound like there was a lot in that,
but it's pretty clear did not wish death on anyone.
But him not being here is a blessing that that's
to me, that's a big line to draw. And because

(03:10):
of Charlie Kirk's status, whether or not, like I know,
we need to be humanitarian about a lot of this stuff.
We need to think of these people as people, all
of them, including Charlie Kirk. They are people. But if
we pull the humanitarianism out of this and we don't
look at her as just like a normal teacher or anything,
she is just a person in the United States saying this,
that is a bad thing to say about someone who died,

(03:33):
no matter what their background is, no matter how public
they may have been, And that is certainly going to
elicit a reaction of some sort about how good or
bad of a person you are when you say something
like that. Now, does somebody who goes on Twitter and tweets,
dawts and prayers, t's and p's for you know, anything

(03:53):
that's happening, does that make them all of a sudden
a better person than anyone else, I don't think. So
it's kind of performative to me. That's not to say
you shouldn't say it, not to say that you don't
mean it, but it's not like I'm going to see
you say that on Twitter or Facebook or whatever. And
my first inclination is like, Wow, what a great person.
They wish thoughts and prayers to this person they don't
actually know. It's not really where my head goes. But

(04:14):
you know what, when I see somebody go out of
their way to say something like him not being here
as a blessing, Yeah, that tells me you're probably not
a great person, regardless of a guy's background, regardless of
whom we're talking about here. So this was picked up
just like I mean, there were watchdogs on this around
the entire state of Iowa, Nebraska, everywhere around the country.

(04:37):
People were building websites which essentially were saying, hey, here's
all these teachers, here are these people that work at
these places, and here's what they were saying about this.
Do you trust them to work at your place of
business or maybe we should just inundate these businesses these
people work and just say if you don't get rid
of this person will never support you or anything like that.
You have to make a business decision. That's not a

(04:57):
violation of first memmor rights. The government's not you from
doing that. This is a private entity, a private individual business,
and the whole point of them operating is so they
can make a profit, or as far as the school district,
so families know that they can send their kids to
school and they can trust what the teachers are teaching.
So the next morning, after all this started to go viral,

(05:20):
her response on Facebook is that she did not wish
death on anyone, and she apologized, and later that morning
she had a more extensive apology on her own Facebook, saying,
and I quote, I want to clarify a statement I
made yesterday. I do not condone violence of the killing
of people you disagree with, politically or otherwise. That was
never my intent. That is not who I am, nor
what I believe. I believe strongly in the freedom of speech,

(05:42):
which also means I can disagree. I do not treat
others poorly or wish them any harm because we do
not agree. I am sorry I have offended people in
this community believing that I condone killing others. I did
not think he should be killed. After further review, I
should have thought more about how I chose to post
my thoughts, how it would sound. I take responsibility for
the poor wording of my post. End quote, last word

(06:04):
on this. For me. You can say all that, but
when I get into arguments with my friends or my
wife or anything like that, this is what I say.
It isn't about what you meant to say, it's how
the person you're saying it too interprets it. You have
to constantly be thinking about how you say things because
of what it could mean to the person you're saying

(06:25):
them to. When you go on social media and say
something like he is a terrible human being terrible. I
do not wish death on anyone, but him not being
here is a blessing. That doesn't overtly implicit that or
imply that she has some condoning of violence, but she
does say it's great that essentially it's great he's dead.

(06:50):
This individual, I'm glad he's gone. That's what that implies,
and that's good enough for me to think that you're
a bad person. And politically speaking, I don't want you
teaching my kids anything. You couldn't hold your tongue enough
in that setting on social media. Who's to say what
you're saying in the classroom. I don't know how you
defend yourself after that, but we'll see if any sort

(07:14):
of pro Trump, anti immigrant, anti Democrat post by the
superintendent of same school district, if that defense actually ends
up holding up in some way, he ends up having
to answer for his social media posts and the school
board president and his conservative social media posts. If those
social media posts end up coming into play here and saying, hey,

(07:37):
this is not consistent here, maybe you have to send
it to a vote with the school district. I don't know,
but it is quite a fascinating development, and we will
keep an eye on it as it continues to develop.