July 19, 2005

Religion in the workplace

Continuing with the theme of bizarre education news, we now have the Utah teacher fired for being a witch.

"She also believes in witchcraft and paints her windows in her classroom black. Halloween is her favorite holiday and she doesn’t hide the fact that she prefers the dark side."

Witchcraft? Jensen had always known her coffee drinking was considered odd. She was the only teacher who drank the stuff, though one part-timer occasionally sneaked a cup saying, “‘I’m really careful about where I drink this,’” Jensen said. Her proposal that students read Steinbeck’s classic but profanity-laced Of Mice and Men had raised eyebrows. She had once been accused of swearing in class by a parent who heard the rumor at Relief Society Enrichment Night. But witchcraft? That was a shocker.

Reading the article, I'm not sure that the coffee is actually the reason she "believes in witchcraft" - it's more likely to be that she taught The Crucible one year. Of course, that's oddly prophetic, as it turns out.

If Jensen were a witch, her belief system would be protected by federal antidiscrimination law. But she isn’t. She was raised LDS, but left the faith long ago and doesn’t practice any religion now.

Perhaps that's the real problem. Both non-LDS teachers in the school were fired on the same day. The other was not a lapsed Mormon - she was Catholic - but students still referred their area of the building were as "Hell's Corner."

Further, it appears that the state attorney general may have withheld key evidence in the case, about the part of the school board meeting where the witchcraft accusations were discussed. That's a very serious matter, sufficient grounds for disbarment in any state. That it would be done by a state attorney general is mind-boggling.

Posted by Elizabeth Nugent at July 19, 2005 02:24 PM
Comments

After reading the article, it would seem to me that the comment about drinking coffee was one example of just how different she was from her Mormon co-workers, who don't consume caffeine. Openly drinking coffee obviously shows that she's not "of the faith", and if you're not with us, you must be against us, right?

I also got the impression that the school district withheld the key evidence, and the AG stepped down after discovering this.

Having lived in Utah for a couple years, I'm not surprised at the discrimination. Shortly after I arrived, I was asked whether I was Mormon or Military (There's an Air Force base north of Salt Lake city). When I responded "neither", I was told I'd better pick one if I planned to stay very long... Luckily, I was employed by an out-of-state company when I lived there, so religion didn't enter into the equation for me.

Posted by: Keith at July 19, 2005 03:51 PM

We had a similar issue when Pasty was youth minister in Texas. Pasty is unconventional in her approach to teaching children but it is what she does for a living, and she's good at it.

Three years of building the youth mission at Trinity and she was dismissed when a group of parents 'heard' she was practicing ... and teaching ... witchcraft. What galled us was that the Father just sorta ... caved in and didn't wait to hear her side of things.

Posted by: Brian at July 19, 2005 05:06 PM

Gah. Remind me never to set foot in Utah, they'd probably tie me to a stake withing 15 minutes.

On the other hand, those 15 minutes might be terribly amusing. I certainly wouldn't want to leave my pentacle behind. ^^

Posted by: Elizabeth Dew at July 20, 2005 07:46 AM
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