Dr. Lauren Gutterman Pens Essay in Slate: "Why Queer Teachers...Should Absolutely Have 'Gay Agenda' in Classroom"

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UT AMS Assistant Professor Dr. Lauren Gutterman has authored an essay for Slate on the September, 2017 decision by a North Texas school district to remove an elementaryschool teacher from her position for openly acknowledging her queer identity to her classroom. A parent complained that by showing her students a photograph of herself and her partner in Finding Nemo costumes, the teacher, Stacy Bailey, was promoting a "homosexual agenda."  Dr. Gutterman places the school district's decision in the long historical context of anti-LGBTQ workplace discrimination practices throughout the mid- to late-20th Century, and argues that queer teachers must be allowed and encouraged to affirm their own sexual identities in the classroom, for their own sakes but also for their students' and colleagues'.You can read Dr. Gutterman's essay here.