Lesbian battles gag rule - teacher sues Utah school district - On The Line - Brief Article

Progressive, The, Jan, 1998 by Catherine Capellaro

Spanish Forks, Utah

Wendy Weaver recently lost her coaching job. The reason: She's a lesbian.

Shortly after Weaver divorced her husband and moved in with Rachael Smith, the volleyball coach began making her annual phone calls to inform team members about summer volleyball camp. One student asked her if she was a lesbian.

"She said, `Can I ask you a question: Are you gay?' I said, `Yes, I am,"' says Weaver. "She said, `I just don't want to be around it."'

The student quit the team and told her parents.

In early July, the school board called Weaver in for a meeting. They fired her from coaching, and warned her that if she made any comments about her "homosexual orientation or lifestyle" to students, staff, or parents, she could lose her job as physical-education and psychology teacher.

"I asked the district to clarify," says Weaver. "`Are you saying that if I'm down at the ballpark and a parent sees me holding Rachael's hand and complains, I'm responsible for that?' And he said, `yes."'

In the small, mainly Mormon town of Spanish Forks, about eighty miles south of Salt Lake City, Weaver isn't sure who she can talk to. But she's sure her First Amendment rights are being violated. So, with the help of Utah's ACLU, she filed a federal lawsuit against the school district.

"Wendy faces very serious restraints on what she can say about her lifestyle and sexual orientation," says Pamela Martinson, one of Weaver's ACLU attorneys. "She is not asking for reinstatement as the volleyball coach. She wants the limits on her free speech resolved. Such a gag order would never be issued to another teacher in a similar situation who happens to be a heterosexual."

Carol Gnade, the executive director of the ACLU in Utah, says Weaver's case is an excellent test. "While we know that these things happen in a more covert fashion all over, this was the first time that anyone had put in writing such a clear violation of a teacher's First Amendment rights," says Gnade.

Gnade worries about the outcome. "While gay and lesbian advocacy groups would hope that this case would push the envelope, it is now up to the court," she says. "The political forces here have exerted a great influence on how far our state was willing to take these cases."

Martinson says it hasn't been easy for Weaver to take on a case like this in a small town. "There are some students' and parents' groups forming with the stated mission of getting their children out of classes with teachers whose values they don't agree with." One such group is Nebo School Citizens for Legal and Moral Values.

But Weaver has support, says Gnade."She's lived there all her life. She has a very good relationship with her partner. This is a woman who has a strong commitment to children."

Over the past eighteen years, Weaver has taken in thirty foster children. The couple also has seven biological children from previous marriages.

"The community has been OK," says Weaver. "The children haven't been harassed. This parents' group in some ways has been doing me a favor. They're so outrageous that people have had to make a judgment."

For more information, contact ACLU of Utah, 355 North, 300 West, No.1, Salt Lake City, UT 84103. Or call (801) 521-9862.