GOP Governor About To Strip Due Process Rights From Teachers — LGBT Protections Most At-Risk

Sam Brownback is the quintessential anti-gay Republican from what would seem to be the 1950’s. A one-term U.S. Congressman, and one-term U.S. Senator, Brownback won his home state’s gubernatorial election in 2010.

Last year, Governor Brownback signed into law a highly-controversial and likely unconstitutional anti-abortion bill, and at the top of the page wrote his reason: “JESUS + Mary.” In 2011, Brownback got into a small social media firestorm after demanding a teen who said she had tweeted her thoughts to him (“#heblowsalot”) write him an apology.

In 2010, a reporter asked Brownback, “Do you think it’s appropriate to criminalize homosexual conduct anymore?” His response? “I’m not going to comment.”

Brownback is believed to be a member of The Family, the group that has a Washington, D.C. boarding house for Christian Congressman and Senators on the famous C Street. From there they reportedly have been critical in helping to pass what was known as Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” bill.

HRC gave Brownback four “zero” ratings. He is believed to have ties to or worked with the Family Research Council and the American Family Association, he believes homosexuality is immoral and he does not support LGBT protections at all — be it in hate crime laws or workplace discrimination laws.

Which brings us to the state of Kansas and their terribly underpaid teachers.

Teachers in Kansas are so underpaid, and the Kansas public school system is so underfunded, a federal judge was forced to demand the state cough up well-over $100 million more to teach their children. In return, state lawmakers gutted any semblance of protections — what some call workers’ rights, or tenure — for teachers.

The bill would make it “easier to fire teachers by eliminating their due-process rights,” the Kansas City Star bluntly notes.

So, if a principal or administrator doesn’t like gay people, and Gov. Brownback signs the bill into law, any LGBT teacher could be without a job, and not given a reason, or a chance to appeal. To be clear there are no specific protections for LGBT teachers, but this will make it easier to fire them.

MSNBC reports that over the weekend, “the Kansas legislature passed a bill that strips teachers of the right to challenge dismissals and ensures tax breaks for corporations that fund private school scholarships.”

Kansas’ teachers are among the lowest paid in the United States, with the state coming in 42nd in teacher pay. Educators fear that eliminating due process rights for teachers will make it even harder to retain talented teachers. “How do we get great teachers to come to Kansas when they’re already getting paid so little, and now they have no due process?” Aaron Estabrook, a school board member in the city of Manhattan asked msnbc. “How can we recruit them when they won’t be protected?”

The Wichita Eagle notes the bill, now headed to Gov. Brownback to sign, “strips teachers of a protection they have had since 1957.”

The bill would put $129 million toward addressing inequities to satisfy a March 7 Kansas Supreme Court ruling.

It also would eliminate public school teachers’ right to due process hearings that was established by a 1957 Supreme Court case. And it would provide tax breaks for corporations that donate to scholarships for private schools.

MSNBC adds “Tom Witt, the executive director of Equality Kansas, said that the bill will make it easier for homophobic administrators to fire teachers based on their sexual orientation.

“There are gay and lesbian teachers in this state who are perfectly good teachers, but the only reason they still have their jobs is, even though their administrators wanted to get rid of them because of their sexual orientation, they couldn’t,” Witt said. “You take away this protection. It’s not like people can go back in the closet.”

The Kansas branch of Americans for Prosperity, the group founded by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch, had pushed for the change and lauded the elimination of due process for teachers. Jeff Glendening, AFP-Kansas’ state director, called the bill’s passage “a great win for Kansas students.”

On a Washington Post ranking of public high schools in the nation, the first Kansas school appears at number 339.

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