Butt Me No Butts: Teacher's Firing for Reading "I Need a New Butt!" Children's Book to Class Overturned

A short excerpt from Tuesday's long decision by Mississippi Court of Appeals Judge Anthony Lawrence in Price v. Hinds County School Dist.:

Toby Price, a licensed educator and assistant principal, read to the Gary Road Elementary School second-grade class on "Read Across America Day." Since the educator who was scheduled to read to the class did not appear on a Zoom session, Price—at the last minute—stepped in to read and selected a book entitled "I Need a New Butt!" from his personal collection. The picture book was intended to be humorous and depicted a child searching for a "new butt." As such, the book contained references to and illustrations of "butts," "butt cracks," and "farts." {The child imagines a litany of possibilities for his "new butt," such as "a butt that's armor-plated[,]" "a bumper butt made of chrome[,]" "[a] rocket butt[,]" an "arty-farty butt[,]" and "[a] robo-butt[.]" The book concludes with the child finding his father bending over to repair a sink only to discover his father's butt also had a crack in it.}

Following the reading, a student began repeating the word "butt" incessantly. Price was placed on administrative leave that day and fired two days later.

The court concluded that the firing decision "was arbitrary, capricious, and lacked substantial evidence," and was thus invalid under state law:

The Board's decision was detailed in its reasoning as follows: (1) the book at issue "contained pictures of child and adult nudity and inappropriate activities"; (2) Price previously "acknowledged the problematic nature" of such books; (3) the book caused a "negative, immediate impact"; (4) Price violated the Mississippi Code of Ethics; and (5) Price was not a credible witness….

This Court notes that "[t]he superintendent of a school district may dismiss a licensed school employee for good cause." However, "in a hearing concerning a dismissal, the burden is on the superintendent to show that a principal or teacher has been dismissed for good cause." …

"[T]he terms 'arbitrary' and 'capricious' imply a lack of understanding of or a disregard for the surrounding facts and settled controlling principles." "An act is arbitrary when it is not done according to reason or judgment, but depending on the will alone." On the other hand, an action is "capricious" if it is "done without reason, in a whimsical manner, implying either a lack of understanding of or a disregard for the surrounding facts and settled controlling principles."

With those definitions in mind, this Court finds the School Board's decision arbitrary and capricious. The school's library contained a number of books depicting "nudity" and "inappropriate activities." Several of those books were entered into evidence at the hearing and reviewed by this Court. The books included numerous mentions of the word "butt," naked children running through the street, a child disobeying numerous school rules, a person dancing naked in the rain, a person standing in only a raincoat which exposes his butt, and what appeared to be "[s]omething's head where their bottom should be." There is simply no stark contrast between this book's content and the content of the others. The evidence before this Court does not support a finding that the book "I Need a New Butt!" was more severe in nature than the other books contained in the library.

Further, the school had allowed similar books—even one with the same author and illustrator as the subject book—to be read to elementary students in the past. The record reflects that Price not only read a similar book to students in the past, but that reading was streamed live, recorded, and posted on Gary Road Elementary's Facebook page. At the time of the hearing, the post was still on Gary Road Elementary's social media pages. In sum, the school allowed the reading of a similar book to occur without issue and allowed the content to remain available on its social media page. The books in the school's library discussed "butts" and contained pictures of butts, but the school district complained in particular about "I Need a New Butt!"

Price's termination was based on a book similar in nature to other books contained in the library, which leads this Court to believe the decision was indeed reached "in a whimsical manner." In sum, the decision of the School Board demonstrates "a lack of understanding of or a disregard for the surrounding facts and settled controlling principles." Therefore, we conclude that the decision to uphold Price's termination lacked substantial evidence and was reached in an arbitrary and capricious manner.

The court therefore didn't reach Price's arguments that the decision violated the Due Process Clause or the First Amendment.

Joel Frank Dillard represents Price.

Comments

[Jerry B.]

“But, but, but…” says the school district.

[Rubbish!]

No ifs, ands or butts.

[M L]

Seems like school districts/boards should be able to make their own decisions on this, like any other employer. Seems silly for judge to be involved in "overturning" a teacher getting fired, especially for subjective judgment calls like this or decisions about the content of teaching.

[energizzer]

the school can likely promulgate rules banning books containing the word "butt" from the school.

but until they do so, they cant fire someone for reading a childs book just because it contains the word butt

[Jaypd]

Why does someone like you, that clearly isn't a lawyer and likely barely understands the world they live in, coming on a blog written by law professors and commenting? Surely you must have better things to do, like watch Fox news.

[mulched]

Thank you for standing up for lawyers! They are especially well-known for their understanding of the real world and should be respected as such!

[M L]

A local community, through their elected school board, should be able to decide what goes on in their school and which teachers are going to teach their kids and what they are going to teach them.

Let me guess - You are a childless degenerate who for some reason has a strong desire to exert your opinions about what happens with other people's kids?

[Sarcastr0]

Aren't you a lawyer? MillennialLawyer, to be exact?

[Dr. Ed 2]

People often criticize me because I am not an attorney — well in this case I turn around and say that attorneys are not teachers. Attorneys do not have degrees in pedagogy, attorneys are trained how to argue in court, not to manage a classroom, and attorneys are trained to recognize what is legally relevant, not developmentally appropriate.

I say this as not only a teacher, but a professor of teaching — I could’ve predicted that they would have a boy saying “butt” all rest of the day, and I’m surprised it was only one!

Now, much as I argue that non-lawyers affected by the law have every right to have opinions about it, I also argue that parents affected by education have an equal right to have opinions about it.

Quite frankly, I wish more parents — and non-parents — did. This is not a popular opinion in my profession, but I wish the public knew more about what is going on in both K-12 and higher education because it would clean up a lot of the things that badly need to be cleaned up.

All I am saying is that it is arbitrary and capricious to presume that any book is inherently appropriate to be read to a second grade classroom. I would include the works of Emmanuel Kant in this regard, not because they’re sexually suggestive but because they would be incomprehensible to second graders.

The term is “developmentally appropriate.”

[David Nieporent]

People often criticize me because I am not an attorney

To be clear, that's not the genesis of the criticisms of you. That's at most icing on the cake.

[Bwaaah]

I disagree with M L's take. I'm generally against censorship. And I don't like much of any rules that are arbitrary and capricious. I have heightened concerns about both of those in public institutions.

Your STFU to M L, based on him/her not being a lawyer, captures that censorious spirit and that arbitrary and capricious one too.

You look like an elitist snot who lacks self awareness.

[con_fuse9]

The school board is not the 'employer'
The government is. The government has deemed the school board can terminate when the school board has good cause etc.

School boards are highly political, can't have them making arbitrary decisions.... sell off all school assets cancel school for the rest of the semester because we feel like it. So, there are plenty limitations to their 'power'.

Basically, some kids went home and told a lot of fart jokes or butt jokes and some Karens - I mean parents complained. And when enough of them complained they fired the principle and tried to ruin his life....

Geez, a lot of people need to get over it. We're building a country of pansies.

Next they will fire the principle because too many kids didn't get A's on their report card. And if you think parents don't complain about a B on report card...

[David Nieporent]

Seems like school districts/boards should be able to make their own decisions on this, like any other employer. Seems silly for judge to be involved in "overturning" a teacher getting fired, especially for subjective judgment calls like this or decisions about the content of teaching.

You think school boards should be able to act in defiance of state law?

[Riva]

I wonder if the judge would object to the old classic "Baby Got Back" playing in the background at yee old courthouse?

[con_fuse9]

Oh shit, that's a classic now?!!

[tuphat]

"L.A. face with the Oakland booty."

[Riva]

There’s probably a Harvard seminar class dedicated to it.

[Incunabulum]

But it wasn't arbitrary or capricious - it was an example of malicious compliance with policies Progressives hate.

We saw this with the US military when Hegseth ordered the 'dewoking' - they went and made a big show of having to stop 'black history month' even though that wasn't required.

[tuphat]

"Following the reading, a student began repeating the word "butt" incessantly." Jeeze, get that poor kid some help.

[Dr. Ed 2]

A competent educator would have expected this and that is why a competent educator wouldn’t have read this book.

[snarling_dog]

A competent educator surely would have picked the classic bedtime story "Go the Fuck to Sleep"

[Bwaaah]

"Butt" doesn't even register as a a potential issue for me. It's become the de facto popular way to tastefully refer to...a butt.

I'm suspicious of people who have difficulty laughing at fart jokes. That indicates, to me, a serious my-shit-don't-stink problem. And, well, it probably does. (I know mine does. :-))

[Dr. Ed 2]

And 10 years from now, when these children are already incarcerated, what will you say then?

I’m looking at the NCES profile of the school, and I’m saying that maybe we should let the locals address their problems.

We already have way too many black men in prison.

[bernard11]

You think that kids who say 'butt' are likely to be incarcerated later in life?

That's pretty stupid, even for you.

[Dr. Ed 2]

E V — I am looking at this as a teacher and as a professor of teaching — I would not call myself an expert, but I do have a wee bit of background here.

First, the court apparently is saying that since you have inappropriate books in your library, it’s OK for a similar book to be read in a classroom. How is this not “two wrongs make a right”?

The distinction I’m making here is it a child doesn’t have to read a vulgar book like this, but a child is required to sit through a reading of it. The child is not given the opt out opportunity, the parents are not giving the opportunity to tell the librarian not to let their child have the particular book.

But what the court appears to be saying here is that you have to go through your school library and toss every book that you don’t wanna have read to an entire classroom. Isn’t that worse than simply saying certain books unappropriate to read to a classroom?

I would have instead ruled that the library contains books developmentally, appropriate for a variety of children, including some books which are inappropriate for some children. The distinction is it when you read it to everyone, it needs to be appropriate for everyone.

And that you would expect an assistant principal to know this.

The NCES data on the relevant school:
https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/schoolsearch/school_detail.asp?ID=280186001036

The school is located in Byram Mississippi and is part of the Hinds County School District. It is PreK - 2 (ages 4-8) and 93% minority, including 650 Black students and 38 White ones. It has a high percentage of poverty.

I presume — but do not know — that the 76% Black legitimacy rate is reflected amongst those 650 Black students.

This raises a question that I actually would like lawyers opinions on — can a mostly-poor, mostly-Black school impose higher decorum standards in attempt to lift its children out of the ongoing cycle of welfare, poverty and incarceration? There are people in Black education who argue, credibly, that this is the only way we are going to break this intergenerational cycle — did the schools have to raise children they are able to make something of themselves.

The Black grandmothers, who fought the battles in the 1960s, a bluntly stating that they didn’t put up with the things they did back then to have teenagers like they have now. Does a community, a Black community, have the right to say “no mas” and impose behavioral standards?

[Rossami]

It's not 'two wrongs make a right' - it's 'you obviously don't think it's wrong in that context which destroys your credibility when you try say it is wrong in this nearly-identical context'.

You make a plausible claim that the library reading is voluntary where being read to is less so but as I understand it, that argument would be deemed waived because the school administration didn't make it. Likewise, the 'developmentally appropriate' argument - plausible but the school didn't make it so the court can't make it for them.

[David Nieporent]

It's not 'two wrongs make a right' - it's 'you obviously don't think it's wrong in that context which destroys your credibility when you try say it is wrong in this nearly-identical context'.

Almost. It's not about their credibility per se; it wouldn't matter if they were 100% sincere. It's that it's by definition arbitrary and capricious — the legal standard at issue — to treat two similar situations totally differently.

[Martinned2]

Jesus Christ, this sounds like the town from Footloose. Imagine living in a place like that.

[TwelveInchPianist]

I mean, I wouldn’t have fired the guy, but this looks an awful lot like a judge substituting his judgement for the person who is supposed to be making the decision.

[santamonica811]

12,
I might agree with you, except the judge did NOT substitute his judgment. Rather, he said, "You (the school) implicitly told teachers that this sort of book was fine, by making the conscious decision to allow lots of similar books into the library, AND, by specifically allowing the teacher to read aloud a similar-enough book in the past AND the school then deciding to post (and keep!!!) the video of the earlier reading online." *That* is the problem...that is why the court found that the school's dismissal was inappropriate. Because no teacher would have been put on notice that this sort of book was anything close to being verboten.

If a school district had a policy that a teacher can bring licensed and permitted guns onto campus, and in the past, Handgun A was brought into the school, and so was Handgun B, and Handguns C-L . . . I am confident that a court would not allow a teacher to be fired for bringing in Handgun X (that was similar in all meaningful aspects to guns A-thru-L). To fire the teacher after all similar situations were fine . . . that's one of the classic definitions of arbitrary and capricious, no?

[TwelveInchPianist]

Fair enough.

[Lee Moore]

I have not delved into the detailed judgement, but based on the extracts EV provided, it seems to me that the judge's analysis of "arbitrary" and "capricious" is based on assuming, or deeming, the Board to have known all about the other stuff which is the basis for him concluding that they picked out this particular example arbitrarily or capriciously.

Maybe there was evidence that they did know, but EV doesn't extract that. Maybe the judge thinks they ought to have known. But that doesn't quite fit with the A+C analysis. It is not arbitrary or capricious to pick out the one example you are aware of (perhaps because it has been brought to your attention) if there are similar examples you are not aware of. It might - or might not - be thought negligent, but that is a different game.

Moreover, even if the Board was aware of other examples, picking out this example from amongst others if it, and not others, has been the subject of a parental complaint, does not make it arbitrary or capricious.

It is not arbitrary because there is reason and judgement that this example is different precisely because it has proved sufficient to annoy the customers. And it is not capricious because it has been done with reason - see annoyed customers again - and not out of whimsy.

Anyway, I'm kinda with TIP and disagreeing with santamonica, because all the putting on notice stuff assumes that the Board has indeed implicitly given such notice, as opposed to simply being unaware that the school was being run by prankster 40 year old teenagers.

Indeed it seems odd to argue that real teachers should need to be put on notice that books about butts and farts are of zero educational value and may annoy a goodly fraction of the customers. (Quite apart from the fact that the educational value of teachers reading books to children, other than as a dictation exercise, is of very doubtful educational value in itself. Maybe reading an inspirational but difficult - and perhaps beyond the current capabilities of the class - text might cut it, but I would need to be persuaded that "I need a new Butt" falls into that category.)

Reviewing this :

Several of those books were entered into evidence at the hearing and reviewed by this Court. The books included numerous mentions of the word "butt," naked children running through the street, a child disobeying numerous school rules*, a person dancing naked in the rain, a person standing in only a raincoat which exposes his butt, and what appeared to be "[s]omething's head where their bottom should be."

I think it is fair to say that if any book containing any of this had been found in the library where I was at school, the librarian would have been fired instantly. And a teacher using such materials trying the excuse "but it was in the school library !" would have received the answer - "and you read it to your class rather than reporting it instantly to me !?"

In short the school has no business doing anything like this, and the fact that their library and past classes are replete with butt and fart jokes indicates that the teachers are teenagers, and the Board are asleep at the wheel.

Raze the school, salt the earth, and send the children to work in Walmart right away. They will learn a lot more to their advantage there. (And they will not lack for butt and fart jokes, provided other than at the taxpayer's expense.)

Butt and fart jokes they can get anywhere. The point of the classes in school is to get hold of something better and more useful.

* I exempt the disobeying school rules example. That might have made it into my school library so long as the story concluded with the rule breaker suffering a ghastly fate.

[Sarcastr0]

I think it is fair to say that if any book containing any of this had been found in the library where I was at school, the librarian would have been fired instantly.

I would say such a statement needs support.

[Lee Moore]

I may have mentioned this before but when I was about 10 (and generally at the top of my class) we were required to write a "composition." I wrote my story, and I thought it was a pretty good one. It came back with a mark of zero (out of 20) a large red circle around a chunk of text and the instruction "see me."

The problem, it emerged, was that I had included a chunk of dialog, concluding with ".....and God knows what else !" The teacher, a devout lady, was enraged by this - hence the reaction. Which I confess had entirely startled me, as it seemed to me to be a very anodyne piece of text. I was sent to see the head teacher (her husband.) Equally devout, but less enraged, he quietly told me that this was not the sort of language that should be used in school compositions, I should rewrite my composition, and he would ask his wife to mark it again. Nevertheless he would not be able to remove the two negative conduct marks that she had awarded me for my crime.

I rewrote it, simply excluding the few offensive words. A day or two passed while the smoke issuing from the teacher's ears subsided, and I then got 19 out of 20 for my excellent composition.

It was, I must say, an educationally excellent school. They never successfully taught me to be a Christian, but they had me doing algebra at 8 and I have no complaints.

PS This all happened a long time ago, of course, and things have no doubt moved on. But we had butt and fart jokes then too. Just not in class. Or in the library. The library was, how would you put it, a little more iliady. Plently of heads being lopped off, or people being stabbed and sleeping the sleep of bronze.

[Sarcastr0]

So...you went to a dang near puritan school.
I don't love it, but that is part of being a free country.

Why would you think that was generalizable?

[Lee Moore]

What is generalizable is that butt and fart jokes are not remotely educational. I emphasized the extraordinary moderation and reasonableness of this (obvious) conclusion by that there are way more vehement possible responses to allegedly responsible employees sprinkling butt and fart jokes amongst the educational resources composing the school library.

I quite accept that in a private school, if the governing body wishes to include this sort of dreck in the library, and if they employ teachers who wish to read it out to children, and if these policies and practices are advertised and well known to parents, who - it being a private school - are all volunteers for this "educational" tactic, then fair enough. It's their money.

But in a public school, such things can only persist by flying under the radar. As soon as the parents discover what is going on, they complain. The Board reacts, and the judge says .... "but this has been going on forever ! You should have told the teachers that reading butt and fart jokes to the kids is educationally worthless as well as likely to offend most of the kids parents? How could these finely tuned, exquisitely credentialed experts be expected to know that ? "

If you can find 5% of parents happy knowing that their 2nd graders are being read butt and fart jokes in school, in time that could have been spent improving their arithmetic , or reading or writing, or even music and dancing; and that apart from the butt and fart book actually being read, there are plenty more like it in the library to choose from, you'll be doing very well indeed.

Why else did the Board act in this "arbitrary" and "capricious" fashion ? Because the wool had been pulled from the parents' eyes - and maybe from the eyes of a few of the Board members too.

The purpose of obliging children to attend school, unless parents homeschool them, and of spending hundreds of billions of dollars paying for buildings and tables and chairs, and buses, and computers, and notice boards, and teachers, and pensions for the teachers, and so on - is that the children learn stuff that will advantage them in later life.

This is not it.

[David Nieporent]

JFC. It's second grade, not vocational training.

And you have a weird backwards way of looking at things. If a private school wants to devoutly inculcate supposed Christian values, that's fine. But public schools are more constrained, and should not be deciding that their personal views of godliness affect kids' grades.

[Lee Moore]

Do you not think things like mastering reading, writing and arithmetic might advantage children, even those of moderate ability, in later life ? According to Grok roughly 70% of children are not proficient in reading in 3rd Grade, and 40% in 4th Grade.

That sounds to me like yuuuuge scope for serious work for teachers of every grade up to 4th at least. With no time to spare at all on reading them butt and fart jokes. Now if they were to learn to read by themselves reading the butt and fart jokes, enthused by the anticipation of those much to be sniggered at butt and fart jokes, which are unavailable unless you learn to puzzle out those glyphs, then fine. So long as the butt and fart jokes are in words rather than pictures.

Reading them stories, and showing them pictures, of butt and fart jokes, contributes precisely zip to this important task.

It is a variant on the old Soviet era joke. We pretend to teach their kids and they .... actually do pay us for doing so, the saps !

School is not supposed to be a child minding service. It's supposed to be an educational service.

And the 30% or so who have learned to read by 3rd grade have plenty of other things to learn that are going to be useful. If attempted.

Kids in Hong Kong are sent to cram school in the equivalent of 2nd Grade because their parents are worried that their children are falling behind at regular school .... in algebra. Never mind reading. (And that would be reading Chinese which is 15 times harder than English.)

JFC - this is supposed to be a vital government service requiring spending a trillion dollars of taxpayers money on. It's not a game.

[Sarcastr0]

Monitory teachers like a police state to ensure maximum teaching efficiency?

Sounds like torture for the students and staff.

FFS cram schools are not a laudible goal to reach for.

[Lee Moore]

Monitory teachers like a police state to ensure maximum teaching efficiency?

Well some teaching efficiency would be nice. As it happens, because of state level reforms (ie that would be initiated by the executive and legislative branches, not by leaving it to teachers and their butt and fart jokes) Mississippi has been shooting up the reading achievement tables. In the top ten now, and adjusted for "socio-economic status" they're top. But even then only about a third of pupils achieve at or above NAEP proficient. That would leave about two thirds below NAEP proficient. So a spy in every classroom is not required to see that teaching efficiency is still a tad below maximum efficiency. For the top performing state. As duly adjusted.

I am a laissez-faire guy myself. Because the policing in laissez-faire is by results. If no one buys the product, the business fails. If schools were all private, paid for with parents money, then laissez-faire would be fine. But that's not how it works. The schools get huge gobbets of cash, forcibly extracted from the public, and turn in results of ... 70% are below par readers. But trust us, we're the experts.

Sorry. We don't trust you. You're not experts. You read butt and fart jokes to kids who can't read - at the age of nine !

Do you know how actual businesses monitor their employees ? They have lots of reports and statistics all computerized and every month or week (or hour in some cases) someone's keeping score of output by this person, this department, etc. How do you cut yourself a little slack to experiment and let your creativity flow ? You deliver outstanding.... results. Sufficiently outstanding that the hard nosed cigar chomping beasts at the top say - let's cut that guy some slack. He's making us millions. Maybe we let him do it his way for a bit and he'll make us millions more.

What never happens - in a business - is "hey let's cut Sarcastro some slack. Every year he loses us $20 million, but maybe if we just gave him $40 million to play with as he thinks best, he'll make us a fortune." Though I appreciate that in government that is standard operating procedure.

Yup, to have results expected of you. Torture.

As for the kiddies, Yup, most kids would prefer not to sit in class studying stuff they're not interested in and have little aptitude for. The theory is that a little deferred gratification will help them later on. If the theory is wrong, there's no reason why they should be sitting in school at all.

Just as most workers would prefer not to be standing by that machine twiddling that knob, again and again, and then heaving a dirty pile of garbage onto a cart. Day after day, week after week, year after year. It's boring. It's smelly. More fun to sit at home watching the football, and telling your buddies some butt and fart jokes.

Life's a bitch.

[David Nieporent]

Do you know how actual businesses monitor their employees ? They have lots of reports and statistics all computerized and every month or week (or hour in some cases) someone's keeping score of output by this person, this department, etc.

You know that Frederick Winslow Taylor died more than a century ago, right?

That's not to say that we shouldn't care about productivity — of course we should; as you say, it's school, not child care — but we don't do it by using a stopwatch to make sure the kids didn't spend more than 23 minutes on the art project before getting back to doing math worksheets.

[David Nieporent]

Do you not think things like mastering reading, writing and arithmetic might advantage children, even those of moderate ability, in later life ? According to Grok roughly 70% of children are not proficient in reading in 3rd Grade, and 40% in 4th Grade.

That sounds to me like yuuuuge scope for serious work for teachers of every grade up to 4th at least. With no time to spare at all on reading them butt and fart jokes. Now if they were to learn to read by themselves reading the butt and fart jokes, enthused by the anticipation of those much to be sniggered at butt and fart jokes, which are unavailable unless you learn to puzzle out those glyphs, then fine. So long as the butt and fart jokes are in words rather than pictures.

Reading them stories, and showing them pictures, of butt and fart jokes, contributes precisely zip to this important task.

There are a mandatory 180 days in Mississippi public schools, and a minimum of 5.5 hours of class (i.e., not lunch or recess) per day. That's 59,400 minutes per school year. I am pretty sure that second graders can spare 15-30 of those minutes to have the teacher read a story to them — on National Read Across America Day, no less! — without risking them becoming elementary school dropouts.

[gdanning]

>Indeed it seems odd to argue that real teachers should need to be put on notice that books about butts and farts are of zero educational value

That is simply incorrect Biology is obviously a legitimate topic of instruction.