Steven Lysenko clearly is not part of the Blue Lives Matter movement. Lysenko was shown recently on a video screaming “F**k the Police” and other profanities. That is a common form of political expression. The problem is that, in addition to be anti-police, Lysenko is the assistant principal of Spencerport High School. As will come as no surprise to readers of this blog, I do not support Lysenko’s views but I strongly oppose those who want to discipline or fire him because of his exercise of free speech.
In the video, Lysenko was part of protests that followed the death of Daniel Prude in Rochester, New York, which we discussed earlier. The death raises very serious and disturbing questions of police abuse and racial justice.
In the videotape, Lysenko (who teaches outside of Rochester) is denouncing the response of the police to the protest by saying “We didn’t do anything but chant and sing,” Lysenko says in the video clip. “Our peacekeepers ended up shooting pepper spray at us for singing and chanting and telling them what a s—-y-assed job they were doing. They can f— right off America! F— the police. F— Rochester Police Department.” Not to forget his manners, he then ends with “thank you.”
In response, the Spencerport Central School District released a statement that, although the district supports “racial equality and systemic change,” it does not condone an employee using profane language on social media. Accordingly, “This will be addressed as a confidential, personnel matter.”
The controversy has divided the community with some calling for Lysenko to be fired while thousands of others signed a change.org petition in support of him.
Lysenko has been outspoken in his support of Black Lives Matter. On June 3 on Twitter, he declared “To any students-past or present-who follow me here: know that when you post “#WhiteLivesMatter, you are condoning White Supremacy. I that I will not abide!”
That last statement raises an issue of what Lysenko means by not “abiding” opposing views. However, so long as such intolerance is not displayed at school, Lysenko should be free to express his views outside of his employment. In the video, he identifies himself not as an assistant principal but an officer with a local anti-racism group.
Here is the video: Lysenko video
We have previously seen teachers (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here,and here) students (here, here and here) and other public employees (here and here and here) fired for their private speech or conduct, including school employees fired for posing in magazines (here), appearing on television shows in bikinis (here), or having a prior career in the adult entertainment industry (here). We previously discussed the Vermont principal who was removed for expressing her opinion of Black Lives Matter on her personal Facebook page. We also recently discussed the firing of a Michigan coach who expressed support for President Trump. However, this did not begin with the recent protests. We also discussed a teacher who threatened other teachers who supported police.
I hope that all of the roughly 4000 signatories to the petition in support of Lysenko would oppose his firing even if the controversial statement were flipped. I doubt that but from a free speech perspective it does not matter. The price of free speech is tolerance for views that we may find offensive or disturbing. Unlike Lysenko, we do “abide” opposing views. Some may not deserve free speech protections but they are protected nonetheless.
It is very difficult to fire someone In Japan. So what a company will do with someone they would like to get rid of is give the guilty party a new job. One preferred method is to tell the person their new job is to sit at a desk facing a wall and read a newspaper. Not a new paper every day —- the same newspaper. After a couple of weeks, the person resigns.
In the case of this idiot, I think counting straws in the school cafeteria would be an excellent job.
“In the case of this idiot, I think counting straws in the school cafeteria would be an excellent job.”
***
Don’t they have toilets to clean?
FYI: Spencerport is a village within the Town of Ogden, which is an exurb outside of Rochester. Most of the township is morphologically rural, but the people who live there are commuters. The modal type in that section of the county are wage-earners with moderate prosperity. Lots of Kodak employees back in the day.
Your judgements on this matter are clueless and twee.
This fat slob is 47 years old. So, the Spencerport school district hires arrested-development cases with MEd degrees. Your government at work.
If he’s an ‘assistant principal’, what is his function? Vice principals supervise faculty or they function as the dean of students. A political fanatic who is given to stupid vulgarities is not someone you want in such a position. Any discretion he has will be used to institute discriminatory behavioral standards, some applying to students and some to faculty. It will also be used to promote politicization of instruction.
And isn’t it cute how the superintendent’s office says they support ‘systemic change’. How ’bout those of us who think that’s humbug? What’s the point of common schools when they’re controlled by thoughtless sectaries?
Freedoms are not free. They are paid for with responsibility as well as defending them. This guy is proselytizing and worse. He won’t condone someone saying ‘White live matter’. He is openly connected to an institution with the freedoms that come with education and the ideals of keeping religion, politics, and other extra academic subjects out of the subject matters taught in school. Math is math. History is history. etc. This country is backward enough already with its inability to keep religious idiots out of teaching positions, why add these matters as well. As far as what he does on his own time goes, teachers are routinely fired for unacceptable extracurricular activities like doing adult movies for a reason; it disrupts the teaching. The children are not Turley lawyers pontificating and rhapsodizing legal minutiae. When a child goes into a place of education they should be taught the subjects and taught how to deal with the outside world. Having teachers and/or principals, administrators, etc that condone or don’t condone, rant openly in one direction or another, or make public spectacles of themselves is an obstacle to this, the primary objective. Can the mutt. Hold open discussions as a part of civics classes, designed around free speech and debate. Teachers should always remain apart from advocating.
Instead of teaching our kids to excel in the future we have agitators teaching our kids to hate the nation and despise law and order. Why are parents not taking control of their kids education and removing these people? PISA Math, Science and Reading: China #1 – U.S.#25.
Free speech is fine but there’s also the matter of decorum by public employees. The man should be fired and never allowed to come in contact with minors again, ever.
Another crazy Democrat reliving the glory days of the 1960’s or whatever. Why would any sane White person continue to vote for Democrats???
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Why would a sane person of any race vote for Trump: a bigoted, greedy, lying, corrupt, malignant narcissist?
Commit– I love it when you froth at the mouth like that. I truly would have had fun with you as a teacher in high school. Would you please put up a video of you screaming that comment in a rage?
Your attempt to bait is boring, Young. Pobrecito.
Commit– I am not trying to bait you. I am trying to get others to see you as little more than bait or chum.
Have you noticed that almost every topic on these threads for you turns into a frothing attack on Trump if you participate at all. We could discuss gardening and if you contribute it would be to declare that Trump hates flowers. Either you are paid or you have some bizarre psychological fetish. It would seem less crazy if you obsessed on shoes Imelda.
I consider Trump to be a tremendously dangerous person — someone who is doing great harm to our country, Young, and I call him out because I care about the U.S.
It’s no surprise that you’re more interested in turning this into a discussion of me than of him.
Take up a shoe fetish instead. You will feel better.
If you think that your advice is good, take it yourself.
OK, Dickhead, since your constantly refer to Trump’s bigotry I think it’s time you gave us a few specific examples. If you can’t just STFU.
If you’re not already aware of Trump’s many racist, sexist, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, … statements, that says something, Mofo.
Even Republican members of Congress have sometimes called him out on it, as with his racist tweets directed to four women of color in Congress — all Americans, three born in the U.S. — saying they “originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all)” and “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” Do you seriously think Trump would say that to a white American?
According to you, Mofo, what country that’s “a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world” did Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “come from” and where is she supposed to “go back” to?
And this is only one small example out of a slew of examples.
FFS, he’s literally being sued for defamation related to rape and sexual harassment. Do you not understand that sexism is a form of bigotry?
Do you not know that he referred to an American judge as “Mexican” and attributed bias to that judge for that reason?
Do you not know that the DOJ sued Trump and his father and Trump Management racial discrimination against Black tenants?
Do you not know that when asked what he thought of a database to track Muslims, Trump said “I would certainly implement that” and as a nominee he called for the “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”?
Do you not know that Trump said Jews who vote Democratic are “disloyal to Jewish people … and very disloyal to Israel” and repeats dual-loyalty tropes, telling American Jews that Israel is “your country” and the Israeli Prime Minister is “your prime minister”?
Do you not know that he retweets white nationalists?
…
It’s a long list.
Commit, Dear, you are in a full throttle frothing seizure. Trump is anti-semitic?
Who will be the first to tell her?
I’m quite calm, Young. You project “frothing seizure” onto me because it comforts you to imagine that. Pauvre petit.
Yes, Trump is anti-Semitic, despite Kushner and Ivanka being Jewish. If you think that being Jewish or being related to a Jew makes it impossible to be anti-Semitic, you’re ignorant. You do know that some Jews served in Hiitler’s military and others in his military were married to Jews, right?
William Shirer says in “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” or perhaps in “Berlin Diary” that he was surprised that so many hardened Communists and socialists joined the Nazis and were loyal to them. So Communism and socialism and Nazism are basically all the same, right? I have noticed that many in the Democrat party are open socialists and frequently spout anti-semitic nonsense. In fact that guy Biden visited in Kenosha has filled the web with hate-filled diatribes against Jews so Biden must be anti-semitic, too.
As I said Commit, if we were discussing gardening you would jump in and say Trump hates flowers.
It’s like an uncontrollable muscle twitch with you.
On the contrary, Young, if we were discussing gardening, I’d tell you about the wide variety of plants that I love. One of my favorites is scabiosa — a beautiful flower and beautiful seed pod.
Once again, you project false beliefs onto me to make yourself more comfortable. It is utterly unsurprising. It’s one of your go-to responses, both boring and unproductive.
Yet here when the principal topic is a lunatic assistant principal and free speech, you ring in with another anti-Trump screed.
It’s a twitch. You can’t control yourself.
Do you often confuse choice and compulsion?
Perhaps you project compulsion because you feel compelled to respond to me. And here I’d been assuming that you were doing it by choice.
Dear, people who are compelled often think they have chosen.
Have you ever heard, “I can quit drinking whenever I want, but I don’t want’?
That’s you. Any subject for you comes spinning back to Trump. I bet he is in your dreams, or, rather, your nightmares.
Sleep tight.
Every time you try to insult me, Young, I see it as a sign of weakness. This addiction that you project: do you feel addicted? I hope not.
I think you want to make me the focus of your argument because you don’t have a good argument about Trump. You have no argument against his bigotry (racism, sexism, religious bigotry, …); you condemn Obama as stingy but have no argument about Trump’s choice not to release his taxes (so you don’t know how stingy he is) or the fact that the court dissolved his corrupt foundation or the fact that he’s putting public funds into his own pockets; you have no argument for why Trump still doesn’t have a plan for dealing with SARS-CoV-2 except to hope for a quick vaccine or that it will magically “just disappear” (his words); …
And if *you* want to discuss the V.P., then show some control and focus on what you think should be the focus.
I love the smell of smoking demons in the morning.
Why would a sane person of any race vote for Trump: a bigoted, greedy, lying, corrupt, malignant narcissist?
Because sane people dismiss the propaganda and evaluate the performance of the president by measurable outcomes.
Many of his measurable outcomes aren’t good, Olly: huge increase in the national debt, significant unemployment, only built 3 additional miles of his touted border wall and Mexico didn’t pay for it, large numbers of his associates convicted or indicted, over 180K people dead from COVID-19 and many others facing longterm health and/or economic problems, …
If you only care about the large # of conservative judges, that’s more Mitch McConnell’s doing than Trump’s, and of course may of us dislike his judicial appointments.
And many things aren’t measurable. As a simple example, our relationships with allies have gotten worse, but there’s no standard measure for that.
He was born in 1973. There wasn’t much on campus protest when he was in school.
Personally, I’d rather deal with a teacher/administrator who says “f*ck the police” when he’s not at work than someone like Trump, who reportedly looked at Michael Cohen’s 15 y.o. daughter playing tennis and said “Look at that piece of ass…I would love some of that,” and who — when told that the girl was Cohen’s daughter — responded “When did she get so hot?”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/michael-cohen-in-book-claims-trump-often-made-racist-sexist-remarks-11599441463
Although Cohen lied to Congress, I won’t be surprised if his claim about Trump above is true.
After all, more than one woman who competed in the Miss Teen USA beauty pageant recalled Trump walking into their dressing room while the teens were changing. He’s sexually attracted to teens.
Trump is also on tape bragging about doing this with women competing in the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants:
“Well, I’ll tell you the funniest is that I’ll go backstage before a show, and everyone’s getting dressed and ready and everything else, and you know, no men are anywhere. And I’m allowed to go in because I’m the owner of the pageant and therefore I’m inspecting it. You know, I’m inspecting, I want to make sure that everything is good. You know, the dresses. ‘Is everyone okay?’ You know, they’re standing there with no clothes. ‘Is everybody okay?’ And you see these incredible looking women, and so, I sort of get away with things like that.”
And Trump was friends with Jeffrey Epstein, a pedophile. Ghislaine Maxwell is in prison awaiting trial for sex trafficking girls for Epstein, and Trump has said “I wish her well.” “I do wish her well. I’m not looking for anything bad for her.”
Trump is currently facing a defamation suit from E. Jean Carroll, related to her claim that Trump raped her. She’s also seeking a DNA sample to test against DNA on the dress she said she was wearing when raped. Trump is facing another defamation suit from Summer Zervos, related to her claim that Trump had groped her and kissed her against her will. Cohen also reports Trump kissing women forcibly while they recoiled. And Trump is on tape, there too, saying “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful -, I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait.”
Lots of other women have claimed that Trump sexually assaulted and/or sexually harassed them.
He is a sick man, and I hope he’s voted out in November.
Commit– I would have enjoyed having you as a teacher, too. I suspect you would not however.
You could have simply said, “Oh Look! A squirrel!” and saved the bandwidth.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Sqeeky, are you unconcerned about sexism and sexual abuse?
If so, my guess is that you’re in a small minority of women.
Commit– Have you been treated badly by someone? PTSD perhaps?
Trump is currently facing a defamation suit from E. Jean Carroll, related to her claim that Trump raped her. She’s also seeking a DNA sample to test against DNA on the dress she said she was wearing when raped.
She cribbed an outlandish story off of a 2012 Law & Order episode.
I was a handful in high school. I am trying to imagine this fat loudmouth calling me in for discipline after this video circulates through the school. He would not find it a pleasant experience. He has sacrificed the little authority he had over the students. He can’t do the job now and probably never could. He needs to go out the door with the broken furniture before contempt for this porky pinata taints the rest of the school administration. Boys of a certain age can be merciless.
In high school, I would have been happy to destroy him.
Anon– Yes, it would have been fun, not defiance but actual predatory fun. I almost wish I had him in our school. Hunting season is open! The game is crashing through the brush.
If he does not “abide” opposing views, why do his deserve protection? “The Constitution is not a suicide pact.”
People shouldn’t be fired for speech or actions on their own time unless illegal. Of course if he took his students with him that would probably be different
I am very sympathetic with Professor Turley’s position on free speech. I am not quite sure, however, that I see this as a free speech issue. This man is an educator of children. My issue, as a parent, is whether I want someone like this — who publicly conducts themselves in such a vulgar and uncivil manner — as the person setting the example for my children.
Given that vice principals commonly function as the dean of students, he’s rather compromised his standing with all of this. Distinguishing this case from a half-dozen others where school district employees were canned for political dissent is not that difficult.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy is related to the Lysenko of Soviet fame who condemned Mendelian genetics was “bourgeois.” “Racist” has taken the place of “bourgeois” in the modern leftist lexicon.
Jonathan Turley, not “assistant professor”.
Tch, tch.
🎓
He’s setting a poor example and is in a position of authority that deals with school management (personnel, curriculum and defining/enforcing policies/guidelines). He’s already on record as not abiding (allowing/tolerating) those who refuse to support Marxist BLM. And he’s shown himself to be mentally unstable. Fire him.
‘The controversy has divided the community with some calling for Lysenko to be fired while thousands of others signed a change.org petition in support of him.’
First, a Change.org petition is a meaningless expression of anything. A petition request is submitted to the national organization which then publishes it to the entire country and anyone from anywhere can sign it. We had one such petition here to remove some monuments and over 2,000 people signed the petition (not counting my dog who also signed). On review, only a few hundred were from this town.
Second, what happened to the idea that a person’s conduct should not reflect poorly on the institution that pays his salary?
Third, one would have to live in a cave to think that his social media posting has not been disseminated widely at his school through student’s cell phones or iPads.
Fourth, assume the assistant principal is on a public street. Must we excuse him walking up to a student or the student’s parents or grandparents and screaming “F**k the Police”?
Let’s face it, in this country today only a professor who uses a Chinese word that sounds like a racial slur will get removed from teaching a class.
I would fire him in a heartbeat and not look back.
He should be tested by a group of conservative students, and if he shows any intolerance whatever he should be fired for proving his mental unfitness for his position.
His book is junior high students, who, being junior high students, do not have political views. They often have sentimental loyalties, though, as do their parents. It’s not the job of the schools to try to set the young against their mothers and fathers.
Is ukFay free speech? Someone needs to teach piglatin to this teacher. Those who can: teach. Those who can’t: teach teachers
How authoritarian of you!
The problem is, this Asst. Principal is going to be suspending students who say “F**k you, Mrs. X”. I am sorry, this man should not be in a place of authority. Put him in the district office doing paper work, after a couple of weeks cooling off period.
Jonathan wrote, “As will come as no surprise to readers of this blog, I do not support Lysenko’s views but I strongly oppose those who want to discipline or fire him because of his exercise of free speech.”
It really doesn’t matter what rational thinking people think any more Jonathan, civility is gone and tit-for-tat rationalizations are being used far and wide to justify unethical and even immoral behaviors.
Hordes of Anti-Social “Stupid” People Stomp Civility Into Submission!
THIS GUY is a NUT CASE.- He is disturbed and should be FIRED from hispostion.