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Substitute instructor gets help from ACLU

THE BLADE

Substitute instructor gets help from ACLU

Sylvania refuses to let him teach

The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio has taken up the case of a Sylvania Schools substitute teacher who said the district won’t let him teach because of a Facebook post.

Derek Ide, 28, said he posted in October about a video of a black female high school student who was assaulted by an officer in South Carolina. The ACLU said that the comments are constitutionally protected, and Mr. Ide should get his job back.

Sylvania Schools officials say the district stopped using Mr. Ide because of his “unreliability and his past performance,” and that Facebook posts were not part of the district’s decision.

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In the post, Mr. Ide refers to “pig sympathizer” (s), refers to the officer as a “cowardly, semi-sentient, pedophilliac,” that he was “ready to go to war for that little black girl,” and said he would drop any “coward ass racists” who confront him over the matter.

“The courts are very clear on this,” Christine Link, executive director of the ACLU of Ohio, said in a statement. “Speech made by public school teachers that has no impact on their job performance is constitutionally protected free speech. When public schools retaliate against employees for expressing their views, they send the wrong message to students and communities.”

Sylvania school board President Julie Hoffman and Superintendent Scott Nelson insisted that Mr. Ide was not fired for his political views or social-media posts. 

Mr. Nelson called the letter from the ACLU “misinformed” and said staff are free to express their personal and political views outside of work, which is consistent with the district’s freedom of speech policy.

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“I assure you that ... we do not [stop] using his services because of anything he posted on social media,” Ms. Hoffman said.

Mr. Ide’s ties to the district ended after a review this summer of his personnel file that raised concerns about his performance, they said. That review, however, was prompted by a parent who complained about Mr. Ide’s social media posts, with the parent believing a series of posts incited violence and hatred toward police, Ms. Hoffman said.

“We believe that we behaved properly, and we plan on defending our conduct,” Mr. Nelson said.

The incident Mr. Ide referenced in his post involved a Spring Valley High School school resource officer who was seen on video flipping a student out of her desk and tossing her across a classroom floor. The student had refused to hand over her cell phone after she was caught texting in class.

The officer was fired, though prosecutors declined to charge him criminally.

Mr. Ide has been active politically for some time, as a member of the Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Toledo and the International Socialist Organization.

The ACLU sent a letter Wednesday to the district, asking that he get his job back and receive back pay, and the district clarify its policies and issue an apology.

The letter said that the district's human resources director, Keith Limes, told Mr. Ide in July that he could not teach in the district because of the Facebook post. District leaders deny the assertion.

“I am deeply disappointed that Sylvania — the very school district that I attended as a child — would choose to fire me simply for speaking about current events on my personal Facebook page,” Mr. Ide said in a statement. “Don’t we want our public school teachers speaking out against racism and state-sanctioned violence?”

Elizabeth Bonham, a staff attorney for the ACLU, said that Mr. Ide was commenting on a viral video and a broader social conversation about police use of force. As a public employee, his comments outside of work are protected by the First Amendment, and his comments receive even stronger First Amendment protections because of their political nature, regardless of the invective used.

“I think that is hard to say that is not a political matter,” she said. The ACLU letter suggests potential litigation.

Information from The Blade’s news services was used in this report.

Contact Nolan Rosenkrans at: nrosenkrans@theblade.com or 419-724-6086, or on Twitter @NolanRosenkrans.

First Published September 8, 2016, 4:00 a.m.

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