Unprofessional Conduct?

 Mrs. Pettit was on of those dedicated teachers. Licensed to teach in California, she had been working with mentally challenged children over 13 years when her career can to an end. Her competence was never questioned, and the evaluations of her school principal were always positive. 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, a fellow teacher recognized them and discussed Mrs. Pettit’s views with colleagues. A year later, now 40 years old, she and her husband joined ” The Swingers,” a private club in Los Angeles that sponsored parties intended to promote diverse sexual activities among its members. An undercover police officer, Sgt Berk, visited one of those parties at a private residence which he observed Mrs. Pettit performing 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 if one of the parties is under eighteen). 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 proceeding 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 misconduct. But the board revoked her elementary school life diploma (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 up to the California Supreme Court, which upheld the decision of the Board of Education. 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 constitute “immoral or unprofessional conduct” or “moral turpitude” unless there was clear evidence of unfitness to teach. Such an attitude is unrealistic, Justice Tobringer argued, when studies show that 75 to 80 percent of 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 mortality.”