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Monday, May 21, 2012

Suspended! NC Teacher Who Told Student Not To Bad Mouth Obama

I'm sure small-town Spencer, North Carolina (half-way between Charlotte and Greensboro) had no idea it would be put on the map because of the conduct of one of its high school teachers whose rant was caught on tape, posted on YouTube, and then went viral.

The long, rambling raw audio of a few students being harangued by North Rowan High teacher Tonya (or Tanya) Dixon-Neely for standing up for Mitt Romney and, in her mind, being critical of Obama is definitely worth the 9 minutes. It's truly astounding, on so many levels. Not only does she tell one of the boys that he could be arrested for criticizing Obama, she falsely claims the Bush administration did it all the time.

"Do you realize that people were arrested for saying things bad about Bush?"

If that were true, there would be no room in our jails. George W. Bush has been one of the most maligned presidents in history.

The argument started after Dixon-Neely brought up the fact that Romney was a bully in high school. The Blaze has a mini breakdown of the turn of events, after one kid responds:


“Didn’t Obama bully somebody, though?”

The teacher started to get angry and said:

“Not to my knowledge.”

A couple of students relayed the story about Obama admitting that he bullied someone when he was younger. And that seemed to light the fuse on his teacher’s anger. A couple of the students exchanged words with the angry teacher.

“Stop! Stop! Because there’s no comparison. He’s running for president. Obama is the president.”

As one student attempted to argue for a fair, two-sided debate on the history of the candidates, he was shouted down and talked over by the teacher. She continued:

“You got to realize, this man is wanting to be what Obama is. There’s no comparison.”

Once again, the students pressed for equal discussion of the histories of both men, with one saying:

“If you’re gonna talk trash about one side, you gotta talk trash about the other.”

The teacher just seemed to dig her heels in deeper and press her defense of Obama telling the defiant teen:

“You will not disrespect the president of the United States in this classroom.”

Again the student persisted and invoked his First Amendment right.

“I’ll say what I want.”

The still unidentified teacher read the student her rules…her Obama rules.

“Not about him, you won’t!”

The back and forth continued and the most strident of the two students reminded his teacher that President Bush was constantly treated to negative statements about him while he was in office:

“Whenever Bush was president, everybody talked sh-t about him.”

To which the teacher responded:

“Because he was sh-tty.”

The social studies educator went on for a full minute with more ranting, saying that people were arrested for saying derogatory things about President Bush.


Unbelievably, the students are far more knowledgeable than Dixon-Neely with respect to our freedoms. I guess she has no clue that in this country we're free to criticize our presidents, as long as we don't threaten them.

Listening to the audio it's hard to believe the woman is actually a teacher.

Dixon-Neely has since been suspended after an investigation (and the obvious outrage by free-minded people across the nation), but stories differ as to whether it was with or without pay.

UPDATE:  Watch student Hunter Rogers who taped the teacher's rant (and his mom) interviewed on Fox and Friends.


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