i think a lot of you are choosing to look past the actual issues here just to argue and debate about things that are pretty irrelevant. there's not going to be an analogy that fits the situation perfectly, so why keep trying? maybe you'll eventually find the perfect analogy and we'll all see the error of our ways and admit you were right all along? probably not.
more likely the response turns into an argument about the legitimacy of the analogy in question and why that particular square peg doesn't fit this circular hole (if only that were the case with ms. halas). carry on arguing about which analogy is the best fit, then others will readily chime in: "no! that doesn't fit exactly, there are X and Y differences between that analogy and this situation, so your whole opinion is wrong and my argument is correct!" - whatever.
i know the intention is to help people better understand where you're coming from, but people are choosing to ignore that and come at this on a much grander scale. is ms. halas being unfairly treated because she's a woman? is she being unfairly treated based on a past decision she regrets? is this actually little to do with ms. halas personally, and more about how women are treated and women's rights in general? unfortunately none of the above, a school board are just doing what they deem best for their pupils, regardless of how it may affect one person.
you can downplay her career in porn as much as you like; as i said in my first post, i, nor any of us here should judge ms. halas for participating in porn. but it really isn't about our own personal feelings on the issue.
honestly, ask yourself these questions:
- if you had impressionable young children who, as far as you were aware, didn't know anything about porn and certainly hadn't watched any: how would you feel when they came home talking about porn and even having videos of it on their phones? however much sympathy you may have for ms. halas and her situation, i still think you'd put your children first and the school understands that will be the majority of parent's stance.
- how would you have reacted at 10-14 if you found out one of your teachers used to do porn? i think you're all seriously underplaying how big a deal that would be for children in that age group. you can say it wouldn't, you weren't like that at that age and you'd look past it for whatever reasons, but you'd be lying.
- if you were on a school board and had invested interests in what was best for the school, how would you deal with this situation? we can all appreciate ms. halas getting a pretty bad hand here, but would you put that over the best interests of the school? you know it'll be disrupting the children's lessons with her, you know parents will complain and maybe even take further action, but you also know she doesn't do it any more and is otherwise good at her job. what do you do? like i said in my first post, ideally she would have been allowed to stay on and see exactly what the reaction was like, rather than just assuming and making a pretty big decision based on that assumption. but ultimately, it is a pretty valid assumption; it's not that difficult to predict what the outcome would be, it'd get out of hand eventually regardless of any disciplinary action from the school. at the end of the day, the main purpose of a school is for the children to be educated as affectively as possible, not just as an excuse to create a job for someone. so shall we put the needs of this one person before the needs of the many children attending? when the whole point of it is for the children anyway? i don't know what you guys think, but there is only one logical answer in this particular case.
and finally, a lot of you are making the case that it'd be the children's fault for reacting badly and being immature, which i suppose is true. but honestly, how else do you expect them to react to this? in an ideal world it wouldn't be an issue at all, all of the children would accept it as a past mistake and continue learning efficiently. but we don't live in an ideal world, so should we spend time punishing the children for being children? they either act like adults (towards something that's actually a pretty adult issue, not just something you can easily explain and expect them to perfectly understand), or they'll be punished for it?
ms. halas made the decision to do porn, knowing that there could potentially be some consequences in the future. why do you think she chose to keep her past to herself when applying for the job in the first place? i know it's not just something she could casually bring up, but she was being realistic. she knows it's just not a compatible history for a career in educating young children, otherwise she may have mentioned it then. maybe then they could have took more precautions to make sure it never got out to the children at all.
tl;dr: is the school being selfish and/or misogynistic for putting the children before ms. halas? they're just choosing to take the easy option and cut her off entirely, for whatever reason they gave in court, rather than deal with the issue in a way that could potentially let her keep her job. they know it'd take time and effort to discipline the children and deal with any negative attention from parents/media about having a past porn-performer as a member of staff. it is unfair on ms. halas, but in their position, i wouldn't have dealt with it any differently and neither would any of you. there's not much point in posting in this thread though, everyone's just going to think what they think about this whole thing and not change their opinion regardless of what someone over the internet has to say. everyone knows best.
oh and yeti: you are taking this completely out of context and just arguing with something no one is actually saying. try and understand where the opposing side is coming from rather than just attacking without any reason.
you're taking this pretty personally and seem particularly angry at anyone who doesn't have the same opinion as you; i wonder, have you been unfairly dismissed due to a history in pornography? i'm pretty sure bestiality is illegal, so it's not exactly the same.