According to The Blaze, the dust up occurred at North Rowan High School in Spencer, North Carolina, when a social studies teacher whose name has not been released, gave as her "fact for the day" a statement about how Mitt Romney had been a bully in high school.
In the video, which has gone viral on YouTube, a student raised his hand and asked: “Didn’t Obama bully somebody, though?”
The teacher became noticeably angry and retorted: “Not to my knowledge.”
A few more students chimed in to tell the story of Obama bullying a young black girl which was told by the president in his memoir, Dreams of My Father.
This made the teacher even more angry. “Stop! Stop! Because there’s no comparison. He’s running for president. Obama is the president.”
A student attempted to argue for a fair, two-sided debate on the history of the candidates, but he was shouted down and talked over by the teacher.
She continued: “You got to realize, this man is wanting to be what Obama is. There’s no comparison.”
Once again, the students pressed for equal discussion of the histories of both men, with one saying:
“If you’re gonna talk trash about one side, you gotta talk trash about the other.”
The teacher refused and insisted on defending Obama. “You will not disrespect the president of the United States in this classroom.”
Again the student persisted and invoked his First Amendment right. “I’ll say what I want.”
“Not about him, you won’t!” quipped the teacher.
The back and forth continued and the most strident of the two students reminded his teacher that President Bush was constantly treated to negative statements while in office:
“Whenever Bush was president, everybody talked sh-t about him," the student reminded.
To which the teacher responded:
“Because he was sh-tty.”
The teacher went on say that people were arrested for saying derogatory things about President Bush, and that the students who were talking against Obama could suffer the same fate.
The students were nonplussed and correctly stated that their opinions were protected under the First Amendment and they could only be arrested if they threatened the president with bodily harm.
Because a student had the wherewithal to record the entire conversation on his cell phone, which he later posted on YouTube, it became an instant sensation that forced the school to address the situation.
“The Rowan-Salisbury School System expects all students and employees to be respectful in the school environment and for all teachers to maintain their professionalism in the classroom," the school said in a statement. "This incident should serve as an education for all teachers to stop and reflect on their interaction with students. Due to personnel and student confidentiality, we cannot discuss the matter publicly.”
According to the Salisbury Post, the local paper that broke the story, the teacher will not be suspended or face any disciplinary action over the exchange.
However, the video is no doubt causing considerable embarrassment to the school, particularly because local political science professors have weighed in to say that the teacher had her facts all wrong.
For instance, Michael Bitzer, a political science professor at Catawba College and a widely known political analyst, weighed in on the video.
“Her point about not being able to say anything ‘disrespectful’ about the president does fly in the face of the First Amendment, and while she may wish to enforce that edict about ‘respecting’ the president, the issue seems to have gotten personal on her part,” Bitzer wrote in an e-mail to the Post.
Regarding the teacher's insistence that people were arrested for defaming George Bush, Bitzer said he has "no idea" what the teacher was talking about.
"I have never heard of anyone arrested for saying derogatory things about George W. Bush , which I am assuming she is referring to,” he said. “Her belief that if one slanders the president is not very accurate — if you ‘threaten’ the president, that is another story, and that is a criminal offense.”
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UPDATE: Since this story has been written, school officials have decided to suspend the teacher, Tanya Dixon-Neely, with pay, pending a further review of the incident.
