A 24-year-old teacher reportedly lost her job when a video of her ‘twerking’ in a bikini during a dance competition went viral on Facebook. 

The Daily Mail has the story:

The explicit display took place while she was on an Easter break in Cabo San Lucas, a popular holiday spot in Baja California – a 15-hour drive from the school in Ciudad Obregon in the northern Mexican state of Sonora where she had taught for three years.

Encouraged by her friends, she agreed to take part and ended up winning and claiming the top prize of £185 ($260) with her sexy moves to the Daddy Yankee reggaeton hit, ‘Rompe’.

However one of the videos taken by onlookers ended up going viral after being posted on a local Facebook news site – and reaching shocked parents who registered an official complaint.

 

 

The teacher, identified only as Miss Clarissa in reports, returned from her vacation and was welcomed by “dozens of friend requests on Facebook from male fans” and an attorney for the prominent school district, who suggested she resign. Ouch.

She apparently acquiesced to the request, but she later defended her actions on stage while speaking to the Mexican newspaper Reforma. Via the Daily Mail:

‘It was a dance competition, something like this doesn’t define me as a person, it was my free time and we’re in the 21st century. It’s not something to be afraid of, I’m not naked, I’m not having sex or taking drugs or disrespecting anyone.’

Now, you can judge for yourself how “shocking” the dance actually is, but before diving into the question of whether or not a dismissal was warranted there are a few things to look at more closely.

First, the teacher was not “fired” as many reports claim; it appears she resigned at the request of the school’s lawyer. Second, we have no idea what kind of employment agreement the teacher had with the school, Cumbre del Noroeste Institute. So let’s for now dispense with the question of whether or not the school had the legal right to dismiss the teacher.

Instead, let’s focus on whether or not the school should have fired the teacher (or asked her to quit) because her manner was “too sexy” for public display.

Now, I’m aware that twerking would have been deemed “offensive” if not pornographic only a generation or two ago in many countries in the West. Furthermore, I am pretty sure it could get a young woman stoned to death in many parts of the world right now.

But the video seems fairly benign to me. Granted, I’ve been on spring break and am, like, totally hip. But the scene of a woman twerking is something many students in the Western world are exposed to on a regular basis on television and the internet. And Mexican TV is generally less censored than American TV.

Is there a good reason that teachers should be held to higher moral standards than most other people? Or, if they’re good employees (we’ll assume this one was, based on the feedback from local parents), should their conduct outside of school not be an issue?

 

[Image Credit: Youtube]