This is getting out of hand

The Case of Pete Panse

PETE PANSE is a talented and popular high school art teacher in Middletown, NY who uses traditional techniques to to train his students. In December 2005 Mr. Panse was suspended from his job for recommending that some of his advanced students consider taking figure drawing courses that included nude figure drawings. Mr. Panse is suspended from his job pending hearings after which he may be permanently fired, ending a 25-year teaching career. In the meantime, his students are sitting in study hall learning nothing and failing to prepare the materials necessary for their receiving scholarships.

I'm not normally one for this sort of thing, but I've signed the petition asking for him to be immediately reinstated. This case, reading through the article once, twice, thrice, I'm still fucking speechless.

Mr. Panse was charged with making “comments that students could construe as being of a sexual or personal nature...or using [his] position as a teacher to put students into any situation reasonably likely to make them feel uncomfortable because of the injection of sexuality into...the substance of [his] comments”.

Because, of course, kids are certainly never exposed to such filth on the boob tube. Because studying the nude figure is surely a measure of abject sexuality. You pricks.

The petition to reinstate him, for anyone interested. The more the merrier.