Posted: September 13th, 2017

Unprofessional Conduct

Unprofessional Conduct

Case 9.1 Unprofessional Conduct?
Teaching elementary school children with intellectual disabilities requires skill, patience, and devo-tion,

and those who undertake this task are among the unsung heroes of our society. Their difficult and

challeng-ing work rarely brings the prestige or financial rewards it deserves. Mrs. Pettit was one of those

dedicated teachers. Licensed to teach in California, she had been working with mentally challenged

children for over thirteen years when her career came to an abrupt end. Throughout that career, her

competence was never questioned, and the evaluations of her school principal were always positive.

Teaching was not Pettit’s only interest, however. She and her husband viewed with favor various “

nonconventional sexual life-styles,” including “ wife swapping.” Because so- called sexual liberation was a

hot topic at the time, the Pettits were invited to discuss their ideas on two local television shows.

Although they wore disguises, at least one fellow teacher recognized them and discussed Mrs. Pettit’s

views with colleagues. A year later Pettit, then forty- eight years old, and her husband joined “ The

Swingers,” a private club in Los Angeles that sponsored parties intended to promote diverse sexual

activities among its mem-bers. An undercover police officer, Sergeant Berk, visited one of those parties

at a private residence. Amid a welter of sexual activity, he observed Mrs. Pettit perform fellatio on three

different men in a one- hour period. Pettit was arrested and charged with oral copulation, which at the

time contravened the California Penal Code ( although now it does only if one of the parties is under

eight-een). After a plea bargain was arranged, she pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor of outraging public

decency and paid a fine. The school district renewed her teaching contract the next academic year, but

two years later, disciplinary proceedings were initiated against her. The State Board of Education found

no reason to complain about her services as a teacher, and it conceded that she was unlikely to repeat

her sexual miscon-duct. But the Board revoked her elementary school life diploma— that is, her license

to teach— on the ground that by engaging in immoral and unprofessional conduct at the party, she had

demonstrated that she was unfit to teach. Pettit fought the loss of her license all the way to the

California Supreme Court, which upheld the decision of the Board of Education. 116 In an earlier case, the

court had reversed the firing of a public school teacher for unspecified homosexual conduct, concluding

that a teacher’s actions could not consti-tute “ immoral or unprofessional conduct” or “ moral

turpitude” unless there was clear evidence of unfitness to teach. But Pettit’s case was different, the

court hastened to explain. The conduct in the earlier case had not been criminal, oral copulation had not

been involved, and the conduct had been private. Further, in that case the Board had acted with insuffi-

cient evidence of unfitness to teach; by contrast, three school administrators had testified that in their

opinion, Pettit’s con-duct proved her unfit to teach. These experts worried that she would inject her

views of sexual morality into the classroom, and they doubted that she could act as a moral example to

the children she taught. Yet teachers, the court reaffirmed, are supposed to serve as exemplars, and the

Education Code makes it a statutory duty of teachers to “ endeavor to impress upon the minds of the

pupils the principles of morality . . . and to instruct them in manners and morals.” In a vigorous dissent,

Justice Tobringer rejected the opin-ion of the majority, arguing that no evidence had established that

Pettit was not fit to teach. The three experts didn’t ­consider her record; they couldn’t point to any

past miscon-duct with students, nor did they suggest any reason to antici-pate future problems. They

simply assumed that the fact of her sexual acts at the “ swingers” party itself demonstrated that she

would be unable to set a proper example or to teach her pupils moral principles. Such an attitude is

unrealistic, Tobringer argued, when studies show that 75 to 80 percent of the women of Pettit’s

educational level and age range engage in oral copulation. The majority opinion “ is blind to the reality

of sexual behavior” and unrealistically assumes that “ teachers in their private lives should exemplify

Victorian principles of sexual morality.” Pettit’s actions were private and could not have affected her

teaching ability. Had there not been clandestine surveillance of the party, the whole issue would never

have arisen.

Discussion Questions
1. In concerning itself with Pettit’s off- the- job conduct, did the Board of Education violate her right to

privacy? Or was its concern with her lifestyle legitimate and employ-ment related?
2. Was Pettit’s behavior “ unprofessional”? Was it “ immoral”? Did it show a “ lack of fitness” to teach?

Explain how you understand the terms in quotation marks.
3. Was the Board of Education justified in firing Pettit? Explain.
4. Was the court’s verdict consistent with its earlier handling of the case of the homosexual teacher?
5. If teachers perform competently in the classroom, should they also be required to be moral exemplars

in their pri-vate lives? Are employees in other occupations expected to provide a moral example— either

on or off the job?
6. Which of the following, in your view, would show unprofessional conduct, immorality, or lack of fitness

to teach: drunken driving, smoking marijuana, advocating the use of marijuana, forging a check, resisting

arrest for disorderly conduct and assaulting a police officer, being discovered in a compromising

position with a student, propositioning a student, cheating on income tax, calling attention to one’s

openly homosexual lifestyle?
7. Under what conditions do employers have a legitimate interest in their employees’ off- the- job

conduct?

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