Michigan Webcamming Teacher Suspended By School Board

VAN BUREN TOWNSHIP, Mich.—Well, the proverbial excrement has hit the fan at the Van Buren Township elementary school, with the township's school board voting on Monday in a closed session to put "reading teacher for struggling students" Linda Janack on paid leave for appearing in sexually explicit videos with her husband, and according to the news site mlive.com, it "may vote on whether to terminated Janack at the next meeting, scheduled for Sept. 10," according to Schools Superintendent Peter Kudlak. Kudlak referenced Janack's Twitter account HotForTeachers and "an adult website that features the sale of pornographic videos featuring the couple"—likely CamSoda, which previously issued a statement in support of the couple. Reportedly, the school district is investigating to see whether Janack's extracurricular activities have "violated school morality policies," although a web search for such policies brought no results. AVN contacted Superintendent Kudlak's office seeking a copy of the school district's morality policy, but was told that the superintendent was unavailable for the rest of the day and would have to get back to us tomorrow. His assistant said she was unsure whether such a written policy existed. Interestingly, the first comment on mlive.com's article that comes up in the "comments" section asks, "How well defined is the morality clause?" Another comment, this one from "J" (not his real handle), reads in part, "they perform on a regular basis and publish the videos. Most people do not do this and I'm guessing most parents would not want someone with this type of moral character teaching their kids," to which another reader responded, "Just for the sake of argument, what part of this situation makes their 'moral character' questionable?" But J was undeterred, responding to another comment with, "Having sex with your spouse or whomever you choose (of legal consent) is not the issue. The issue is whether an elementary school teacher who performs with her husband on a regular basis and publishes these videos should be allowed to teach elementary school kids." That opinion drew another response: "last I read, consensual sex with your partner is legal. Our country is based on laws, not shifting morals or perceptions. Everything she is doing is legal." Indeed. That legality was first tested in 2007 after math teacher Anna Land of the L'Anse Creuse school district "engaged in a simulated sex act with a male mannequin" during the 2005 annual Lake St. Clair gathering of boaters on Gull Island known as "Jobbie Nooner." Photos of Land in action were posted on the internet in 2007, and some of her students managed to see them, leading the L'Anse Creuse school board to fire her for her behavior at the non-school event. Although Land had tenure, her firing was upheld by an administrative law judge, but reversed by the Michigan Tenure Commission, which according to the Macomb Daily newspaper "determined the photograph was taken without Land's knowledge and her conduct did not provide just conduct for dismissal." The school district appealed the commission's ruling, but the Michigan Court of Appeals upheld Land's reinstatement, ruling that "legal, off-duty, off-premises, conduct not involving students" was not professional misconduct. "Those idiots at the Court of Appeals who say this didn't affect the students are totally wrong," said senior board member John Hart. "The kids brought the pictures to the district—that's how we found out about it, from her students." (In the Janack case, since the oldest student she teaches would be 12 or 13, it's unlikely that any student of hers would see her and her husband's videos.) The board then took the controversy to the Michigan Supreme Court, which in October of 2010 declined to review the lower court's decision.