Fort Worth appeals ruling to rehire teacher who tweeted Trump about ‘illegal students’
Fort Worth school officials will appeal Monday’s ruling by the state education commissioner that they reinstate an English teacher who was fired after asking President Donald Trump on Twitter to crack down on immigration at Carter-Riverside High School.
Georgia Clark won an appeal of her firing when Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath ruled she is entitled to get her job back, along with back pay and benefits. Or instead of reinstatement, the school district could pay her one year of salary.
“The Commissioner’s decision was not based on the merits of the case but rather a procedural technicality with which the District does not agree,” Fort Worth school officials said in a statement. The district said it would appeal the decision within 20 days.
Clark’s tweets in May ignited a national backlash. After her firing in June, she argued that the First Amendment protected her ability to tweet the president.
Clark’s attorney, Brandon Brim, didn’t immediately respond to a request for a comment.
The TEA has 45 days after receiving the appeal to make a ruling on the request. Beyond that, any further appeal would come in the form of a lawsuit in district court.
Superintendent Kent P. Scribner said in the statement: “We stand by our decision because we firmly believe this is in the best interests of all students.”
Tweets
In May, a Twitter account using Clark’s name asked Trump to crack down on immigration at Carter-Riverside High School. One post asked the president to help remove “illegals from Fort Worth.”
Clark told a district investigator she thought the messages were private direct messages to Trump, not public posts.
School officials put Clark on administrative leave in May after learning about the tweets.
By June, Scribner recommended Clark be terminated for using racially insensitive language and abusing social media. The Fort Worth school board unanimously supported that decision.
An independent hearing examiner in August recommended that the Fort Worth school board reinstate Clark, saying the termination was not justified.
The school board in September rejected that recommendation and instead upheld the earlier decision to terminate Clark’s continuing teacher contract for good cause under Chapter 21 of the Texas Education Code. Clark appealed that decision to Morath.
The ruling
Morath’s ruling on Monday stated that the case raises several questions about First Amendment law.
The school district argued that Clark, by signing a contract with the school district, waived her First Amendment rights, according to the document. The school district, Morath’s ruling said, “is mistaken.”
Morath said that a school board is required to make decisions that include “findings of fact and conclusions of law.” While the Fort Worth district rejected conclusions of law found by the independent examiner, it didn’t propose any new ones.
“If a school board wants to change conclusions of law, the school board needs to actually draft new or changed conclusions of law and to provide a real explanation of the change,” the ruling states.
This story was originally published November 26, 2019 at 2:40 PM.
