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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   6559 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 8, 2025

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I disagree with your scenario outlined here. First, because a "concerned parent" probably wouldn't just go in to the school. No, she'd probably go to the PTA first. So then, it's not one person going to the principal, it's a bunch of outraged soccer moms, threatening to raise a stink unless they Do Something.

Second, just a quick Google search returned a bunch of results. Like this case in California, albeit it was almost 13 years ago:

A middle school teacher who was fired after students learned she had appeared in pornography has lost her appeal to return to the classroom, her lawyer said Tuesday.

A three-judge panel unanimously decided Stacie Halas, 32, was unfit for the classroom. Halas was fired in April from her job as a science teacher at Haydock Intermediate School in Oxnard after online videos of her in porn were discovered by students and teachers.

"Although (Halas') pornography career has concluded, the ongoing availability of her pornographic materials on the Internet will continue to impede her from being an effective teacher and respected colleague," Judge Julie Cabos-Owen wrote in a 46-page decision issued Friday by the Commission on Professional Competence.

Halas was continually deceitful about her nine-month career in porn before she went to work at the school, the decision said.

Her lawyer Richard Schwab said Halas had tried to be honest but was embarrassed by her previous experience in the adult industry.

It's right there: fired for having done porn before she became a teacher, because the fact those videos are out there makes her "unfit for the classroom" in perpetuity.

And for a newer example, there's Texas in 2017, which also involves Libertarian politics:

A sixth-grade teacher at an all-girls school in Texas is out of a job and fighting to get her position back after district officials learned she worked in porn more than a decade ago.

Resa Woodward, 38, was removed from the classroom at the Young Women’s STEAM Academy in Dallas in November, after district officials received an anonymous tip regarding her work as an adult film actress, although a subsequent internal review cleared her of policy violations, the Dallas Morning News reported.

…

Woodward, who did not return messages seeking comment early Wednesday, told the paper that she was forced into pornography — saying “that involvement was not of my own choosing” — while living with an older man during a tough time financially. She eventually got herself out of the situation and finished school before becoming a teacher for the Dallas ISD, which serves roughly 160,000 students from pre-K through 12th grade.

But district officials got a tip in March claiming that Woodward worked in porn under the alias Robyn Foster, a name active in the business from 2001 and 2004, credited with 16 movies, according to a web-based adult film database cited by the Morning News.

…

Woodward, according to the internal report, told district officials she stopped working in the business in 2001 and thought a man she knew was retaliating against her by informing her employers of her past.

“I’ve been trying to live my life as far away as possible from this stuff for a long time,” Woodward told district officials, adding that no students, colleagues or supervisors knew of her sordid past.

Bauer then closed the district’s investigation in March, ruling that Woodward’s “past participation” in pornography did not constitute a policy violation.

Woodward’s work as a well-known activist for the Libertarian Party of Texas, however, would lead to her being outed, according to the Dallas Morning News.

…

Woodward told the Dallas Morning News that she wrote a post on Facebook last fall about a drunken driver that angered another man who claimed to be associated with the Libertarian Party in another state due to his beliefs about police. That man then detailed her past on social media websites, Woodward said.

Woodward then notified district officials of the post and she was placed on administrative leave on Nov. 29.

“They told me they were pursuing termination because it became public,” she said.

And it's not just women who get fired, either. From Florida in 2011:

A Miami-Dade teacher's past life in the adult entertainment industry has gotten him kicked out of the classroom.

The school district's investigation into Shawn Loftis, a substitute teacher assigned to Nautilus Middle, Miami Edison Middle, Fienberg-Fisher K-8 Center and Miami Beach Senior High, began last January.

…

But that time was cut short after administrators at Nautilus learned about Loftis' past. Under the alias Collin O'Neal, Loftis was a successful adult film star, even shooting movies on location in Miami Beach. After three to four years of success, Loftis went from in front of the camera to behind it and ran his own adult film company.

But then Loftis decided to change careers and get out of the business all together. Loftis said he wanted to sell his company and use his Master's Degree to teach. He qualified to be a substitute, taught for about a year until one day the past caught up to his present.

…

Loftis said he was terminated because it was determined that he broke a School Board rule which states:

"They are expected to conduct themselves both in their employment and in the community in a manner that will reflect credit upon themselves and the school system."

In addition to being fired, Loftis' teaching certificate is also in jeopardy. He said he may no longer be able to teach the lessons he wishes someone would have taught him years ago.

"I also want people to think before they dabble in that industry what they want to with their future," said Loftis.

Or then, moving over to Canada, there's Quebec in 2014 proving that time is no real remedy:

Pre-internet, you could likely move on from a career in pornography with only the occasional wondering glance your way. But now one Quebecois teacher, 73-year-old Jacqueline Laurent Auger, has had her past catch up with her after pupils went online and discovered softcore porn films she appeared in around 45 years previously.

She has now been dismissed from her position teaching drama workshops at the elite Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf in Montreal. “As educators, we had to ask what message is transmitted to all our students, boys and girls, from the first year of high school to the fifth, by the fact that the teacher of their drama workshops could now be seen on the Internet in the most suggestive of scenes,” the school wrote in an online statement, adding that they wanted to preserve “a calm setting free of allusions or discomfort that is unfavourable to our educational mission.”

Laurent Auger has called the move “completely absurd. I’m 73 years old. When I made those films I must have been 28 or 29. It was to make a living so that after[wards] I could work with great teachers and actors, in Paris and in Quebec. Come on.”

Sure, the culture has shifted in the past decade, but not that much, and not everywhere. So, again, I still don't see it playing out like in your scenario.

Ouch. Nine months? And that's enough to tank her teaching career. To be fair, if the 15 year old guys in her classes are all looking up Teacher's nude scenes that's not going to make for good discipline in the classroom.

These are the downsides people don't consider.

Ah, a modern classic.

Alright, I'll grant you it can sometimes result in them losing a job. And props for researching all these cases. I still don't think it will happen all that often though, and increasingly less with time. Like in your second example, it sounds like the school initially took the side of the teacher, and only decided to fire her after it turned out she was still using her porn name to promote Libertarian politics. And the last one had no trouble working for... 45 years(!?) that's crazy that they still fired her. It will depend on the specific school board and administrator though.

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