Teachers in U.S.

Teachers in U.S enjoy several rights concerning their employment, one such right concerns dismissal from their teaching positions. This and other rights are derived in provisions scattered in state and federal Constitutions, state and federal regulations, and state and federal statutes. However teacher’s protection against dismissal does not cover immorality or rather absence of morality. Immorality in this case refers to individual “conduct that does not conform to the accepted principles of right or wrong in the society” (Jason, 2002). In this case therefore, morality can mean non-conventional habits which on the other hand encompass certain sexual orientation and certain living arrangement among others. The reason why the state is so harsh on immoral teacher is due to the fact that they are supposed to be the guardian and imparter of morality to the society by virtue of being our children’s keeper.    

Courts have consistently faces problems in ascertaining exactly what conduct constitute immorality, this is better demonstrated by a court that observed the vagueness of the word immorality because of the way it denotes different things to different people and jurisdiction especially in regard to terminating teachers from their position. A better demonstration of that can be found in the fact that words like laziness, gluttony, selfishness, avarice, and vanity are considered immoral in certain community. This vagueness is what prompted teachers to challenge the statutes containing some of this meaning for being unconstitutionally vague.

Their argument was premised on the long held maxim in our justice system to the effect that this law just like other out there ought to give ordinary people an opportunity to know conducts that are prohibited so that they can avoid such conducts, otherwise it is not fair to subject a person to unjustified punishment when in real sense such a person was not in a better position to know with certainty that such a conduct was prohibited and could bring about punishment. Therefore the ambiguity that exist in defining the word immoral as far as out justice system is concerned is not healthy has it leave loopholes that can be used to abuse teachers’ right to anticipate fairness in court processes.