Until they found the topless photos, Austin High School officials considered Tamara Hoover an excellent art teacher with a knack for helping students find their creativity.
Now, she’s fighting for her job.
The photos, which were posted on Flickr.com by her partner, depict Hoover in the shower, lifting weights, getting dressed, in bed and doing other routine activities.
Hoover said Friday the photos are art and makes no apologies.
The district wants to revoke her teaching certification, which would keep her out of Texas classrooms permanently. Hoover will appeal the ruling and is prepared to take the case to court, she said.
Last time I checked, the flickr page[s] were marked private — though they obviously must have been public at one time or another for this one to have been copied.
Aside from discussions about what’s artistic and what isn’t, you have to be more than a little naive to presume that Texas public schools function in a fairly recent century.
Apparently she has a myspace page:
http://www.myspace.com/mshoover
“a little naive to presume that Texas public schools function in a fairly recent century.”
The 16th century is fairly recent, no?
Are they still up? I would like to see them for um… educational purposes.
You’ll have to search, but there are some copies out there as thumbnail graphics. They are tasteful nudes, not porn, with artistic lighting.
The brouhaha is ridiculous, but this is Texas after all.
I hate crap like this to, but this was Texas, not a Bay Area school. If you’re going to live in the Bible belt and feed off the public teat, you need to understand the expectations. There was a morals clause in the teaching contracts I use to sign. It clearly stated I must meet community expectations of behavior. At that time being seen in a public place consuming an alcoholic beverage was below community expectations. I was called the the principals office and given a written warning because I was seen drinking a beer with my wife at a pizza parlor. I took their money, either I follow the rules or walk. It took me eight years, but I did walk.
I agree with RTaylor – if it is in the contract: suck it up, or walk.
I just find it a little over the top that they are not just trying to fire her, and leave it to other Texas schools whether to hire her – they are trying to pull her state teaching certificate – permanently??
Two sentences in the story say a lot:
1. “As she was escorted out of class last month she was told that she’s become an ineffective teacher.”
2. “The photos came to light last month as a result of a feud over ceramics equipment with another art teacher,…”
So, she was effective right up until a co-worker with a grudge found a way to get her canned…
How much longer would she have been deemed “effective” if she hadn’t had that feud…?
the secret lives of teachers… If you knew the sex lives of some I know…
“There was a morals clause in the teaching contracts I use to sign”
The problem with morality clauses is that they’re ambiguous. One employer might find posing nude as being immoral while someone else might find voting Republican as being immoral. How can you be expected to follow something without clear guidelines?!
Does anyone really think we should fire teachers because they eat seafood, boil calves in their mother’s milk, or have a graven image in their house?!
It sickens me to my marrow that you liberals would allow this wanton hoar anywhere near our CHILDREN
Nudity is the devils handmadien, just one sight of even your own naked body when your too young can scar you for life!
They should ban breast feeding and being born naked, but oh no you liberals want to piss on our love parade
It sickens me that you use words like “wanton” to make yourself sound important, yet you spelled “whore” incorrectly.
If you want more information on the backwards state of education in Texas go rent “The Education of Shelby Knox” which won a Sundance award and was shown on PBS last summer. It’s quite an interesting story about the backwards sex-ed curriculum in Lubbock, Texas.
SN: “The problem with morality clauses is that they’re ambiguous. ”
Sorry, SN: no way around it. That’s what our courts are for, to determine “where the line is” when a contract is broken.
Those who say that the educational authorities are acting puritanical, let me ask you this, where is the line that you would draw? Topless OK, bottoms off, bad? General nudity OK, spread eagle (so to speak), BAD?
Everyone’s “line” is different, but in this case, the person who pays you line is what matters. As long as the “line drawer” allows reasonable prior consultation, and the line is drawn consistently, I can’t be against it. If she truly felt publication of these pictures would have no consequence, I”d almost be willing to be on her side, but I’m sure she’d known there would be controversy, and should have gotten prior approval.
12. “Everyone’s “line” is different, but in this case, the person who pays you line is what matters. ”
thing is, you don’t give up your First Amendment rights when you take on public employment, so there is a problem here. I am not saying that she will prevail, but there is an issue.
10: he’s joking.
So was I.
#8…sn…..you actually know teachers who DO those things??
Damn
16 comments and not one link to said pictures… tsk.
Actually…..I’m not sure that she wouldn’t have been asked to pack it up in most school districts in the country. It may have liberal vs conservative issues, but it usually comes down to TMI verses keep your private life, private.
We talk here a lot about kids and what they put on Myspace and stuff like that, and we usually agree that it’s just plain stupid to put personal things on the net…..this isn’t any different. This woman is supposed to be a teacher, which sort of gives her (hopefully) some sembalance of common sense, yet….there she is, putting naked or semi-naked pics of herself online. Did she really expect privacy? Is she that dumb? Personally, I don’t want someone that stupid teaching my kids, even Art.
If I was her, I would fight the revoking of my teaching certificate, because thats a bit of overkill, but after that, she’s on her own.
#13 said… “you don’t give up your First Amendment rights when you take on public employment”
The appeals court (I forgot where), made a ruling this week, YES YOU DO!
Realistically, you don’t lose ALL your 1st amendment rights, but when it has to do with why (and where) you are hired, you are limited. The ruling said, a public employee (at least an appointee, in this case) that differs with the department (or head) they are employed with can not “talk” against the department, and claim 1st amendment rights.
Common sense, of course. The constitution and declaration of independence aims towards freedom of speach and allowing the pursuit of happiness, but it in now way says it has to be at the goverments or your employers expense.
“and we usually agree that it’s just plain stupid to put personal things on the net”
I think that is a pretty stupid assumption. What is really so bad about having some of your personal information on the net? Really.
>>What is really so bad about having some of your personal information on the net? Really.
It’s only a problem if you are out-of-the-mainstream in any way.
The next time you apply for a job, if your prospective employer Googles your name and SURPRISE! you don’t get the job. And you won’t even be told why.
However, if you are totally a bland, mainstream person… then it is no problem.
#20…..thats not stupid nor an assumption. I hope your kid or someone else in your family isn’t putting their personal info out on the net. The cases we hear about or read about are just the tip of the ice burg of what is going on through sites like Myspace and others.
Not everyone puts nude or semi-nude shots of themselves out there, but far to many people put everything but their credit card pin numbers into cyber land. Thats just foolish at best, stupid at worse.
You know? If employers are more interested in whether or not your personal values are in line with their own than your qualifications for the job?
So far every company I’ve worked for and walked due to incompetent management has tanked.
Still, its great to know popular opinion is so completely in line with the root causes of the nation’s decline.
Oh, a working class hero’s still something to beee…
Matthew: The nudes were taken down from Flickr, but the clothed ones are still up. Cant link from work, but the author is Celesta Danger look for tag Tamara.
15: Nice CYA. Somehow I don’t buy it.
13: In a contractual agreement you can be stripped of your first amendment rights. “Stripped” ha, I didn’t even mean to do that. But seriously. More appropriately, your rights may be crippled. Example say you work for a DoD contractor. You can not say its your 1st Amendment right to go spill classified information. You will be taken to court and you will lose.
As Einstain said, everything is relative to the observer’s position.
Since the material is relatively tame (especially by Web standards), the teacher possibly thought that in the “limited” circles her pictures would circulate in anyone seeing them would be of a wide enough viewpoint that they would see no ill in it.
Once the pictures entered the mainstream, things become a different matter entirely. How many of you are certain that everything you ever put up on the web will bear scrutiny from every sector of society?
The best thing to do is assume everything you put here, no matter how well intended, will be scrutinized by some that will take the worst impression from it possible.
Ok….if you want to be nekkid and put it on the internet and scream”ART”….whatever….to me its just BS…horomones aside…who REALLY would want this lady teaching their kids after they had all seen her nekkid. I mean really…if this was about the science teacher(a young 25 yr old man with a nice six-pack) and he got nekkid and was conducting experiements and claiming it was in the name of science….well…we all know what would happen.No respectable parent would allow their child to still be taught by this lady…its simply unethical at this point.On a side note.. I will never understand why people feel the urge to take their clothes off and say “look at me..I’m art”. No your effin not…basically you like to take your clothes off and have people stare at you and and know that somewhere somebody is having their lunch time quickie with your “art” picture. Dont try and make it something its not…
and yes I know how to spell nekkid
Man…. I graduated High School 12 years ago, and WOW let me tell you Teacher’s have gotten a lot hotter!!!
If this was a gay male teacher artistically presenting his penis, there would no questions asked as to his fate. Why is it OK? Because she’s an attractive female. Flickr is overflowing with hot lesbian sex scenes that are considered art and don’t have to comply to the same age disclosure laws that admitted adult sites do. If we’re to all recognize same-sex marriages, then we better damn well observe same-sex “sex” as being just that. Sex. It doesn’t matter if they are two hot babes or nasty old men. It’s the content, context and use that define pornography, and Flickr fits the bill as the worlds largest collection of amateur porn being amassed to date, used mainly for masturbation purposes by teenage boys. The reason Yahoo is allowed to continually publish hardcore and even child porn is because they work with the NSA who hope to catch terrorists through social networks they are spying on. If we went to an art gallery and a bunch of perverts were jerking off on the paintings and statues while drooling over my kids, I’d doubt I’d take them back there. Any nude images posted on Flickr for public viewing by children being called art is like saying cell phone ring tones are fantastic contributions to the music world. The truth is, thousands of hardcore and even many child porn images have been published to school kids around the world for over a year by Yahoo on Flickr and nobody has ever really cared, why should they start now? People don’t even care the NSA has turned these social networks into military sting operations to throw unsuspecting victims of random democracy into secret prisons to be tortured indefinitely under whatever charges and rules they feel like making up. We wonder if the liberal, free thinkers on Flickr have any idea how much they help support that self perpetuating war on terror designed to continually feed itself and the military industrial machine. It’s all about censorware and data-mining really, not the seemingly harmless breasts of another delusional victim of corporate sold freedoms and fake rights that don’t really exist outside wome bent Web 2.0 vision of an Orwellian distopia. It’s just more we’ll have to pay in securing ourselves and our children from in this new business of creating fears to cash in on. She should be fired actually, but then compensated by Yahoo for the rest of her life, which they’ve ruined now, through their negligence and greed. Then they should send the rest of their ill gotten loot out to the children around the world they’ve damaged through artistic expressions of the countless porn pushing predators and pedophiles harbored on Flickr.
#28….a gay male teacher was fired for the same thing…..he posed naked, and with some other guys and someone saw it and he was dumped faster than you can say….ooops!!!!
Of course he first claimed he wasn’t gay, then tried the *art* angle.
I am going to go out on a limb, which to me just seems only as common sense: as long as the behavior is legal, it really is none of our business. It is as simple as that. I mean, really, a higher moral standard for teachers ourside of the classroom? Do you honestly believe something so stupid? The governor of California has appeared naked in movies, and few have raised this argument for him, I guess this responds to No. 26 about naked men. Our beloved president wouldn’t answer questions about a certain white powder. Teachers are human and what they do in the classroom is open to be criticized, what is not, should not be, and no it would not bother me if the person was completely naked (she’s not). The people, who get on their moral high donkey, should realize that an art teacher showing her breasts on the internet is nothing. What about a higher moral standard for parents? Maybe we should prosecute the parents who let their kids consult these sites. Oops, that would be the kids of a lot of today’s false puritans, so that would be a no-starter. In the end, it is your job to teach morals to your kids, not your teachers (except incidentally in the performance of their functions). Just say yes to beautiful people.