It seems as if everybody has an opinion on politics these days and it is a hot topic, often leading to some significant disagreements. Even those who just want to voice their opinion can sometimes find themselves in a difficult place.
One person who understands how political opinions can affect them personally is Tonja Luken. They were a middle school teacher from Indiana but after wearing a politically charged T-shirt, she has resigned.
It happened when Tonja was chaperoning a class on a field trip to the White House. A picture that was taken of her on that June 4 trip, which has since been deleted, got a lot of attention and not all of it was good.
In the picture that was posted to Facebook, you can see the teacher along with a colleague who are smiling while they stand outside of the White House. It seemed to be an innocent picture, until you looked closer.
On the T-shirt that Tonja wore, there was a simple four-digit number, ‘8647’. To many, that may not mean much but it is a type of political statement that had serious repercussions for the former teacher.
86 is slang from restaurant culture from the early 1900s that meant to cancel or eliminate. 47 is a reference to Donald Trump trying to become the 47th president. Together, it is a veiled call to get rid of the president.
After this took place, Middlebury Community Schools released a statement that condemned her conduct and highlighted the strict policies of the district.
It said: “Middlebury Community Schools owns policies that require teachers to refrain from using their position to promote partisan political views. This prohibition applies to all teachers, regardless of their political leanings, and to every partisan political message, regardless of its content.
“Our educators should not be advocating personal political views, either directly or indirectly, to our students during the school day or while supervising students at a school function.
“Earlier this week, Middlebury Community Schools’ administration learned of a social media post made by a teacher while serving as a chaperone on a student trip to our nation’s capital, Washington, DC. In the posted photograph, the teacher is wearing a T-shirt possessing a partisan political message while supervising students. School administrators are actively investigating the situation. The student trip only returned to Middlebury on Wednesday, June 4, which unfortunately slowed the investigation process.”
After learning that she would be terminated, she voluntarily resigned.
“Earlier today, Middlebury Community Schools completed its investigation into circumstances surrounding a teacher’s social media post. After the conclusion of the school corporation’s interview, when informed the school corporation would be commencing the cancellation of her contract, the teacher submitted her immediate resignation. The teacher is no longer employed by the school corporation.”
The former teacher, who is a mother of five, has removed everything from her public social media accounts. She has not come forward with any public statement about the incident or about resigning.
