GNS In The News

Court Rules District Improperly Fired Marion Teacher

MICHAEL SPONHOUR, Staff Writer

Maverick Marion District 2 teacher Maggi Hall appears to have triumphed over the superintendent who once threatened in an unusual newspaper ad that his critics would be "blown away."

A federal appeals court upheld a lower court decision that Hall was improperly fired by the school district after she publicly challenged Superintendent William Foil and school board spending.

A lower court judge had ruled that the dismissal violated Hall's right of free speech. The three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond unanimously upheld that ruling.

That means the teacher whom Foil once wrote should be fired "even if the board has to reinstate her and force me to apologize on my knees at high noon on the courthouse steps" could be back in the classroom as early as next month.

Foil, who has retired as Marion 2 superintendent, could not be reached for comment.

Hall said she was "ecstatic" about the decision and hoped to return soon to her old school, North Mullins Primary.

"This is a major victory for the Untied States Constitution," she said. "It's a victory for free speech and hopefully will get more teachers involved in questioning the expenditure of public funds for our children."

School district attorney David Dubberly of Columbia said the firing was legitimate and had nothing to do with Hall writing to newspapers.

"We're very disappointed with the result," Dubberly said. The school board will decide soon whether to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, he said.

Hall's attorney, Richard Gergel of Columbia, said he will seek to have her reinstated to her job plus three years' back pay with interest and legal fees.

The Marion District 2 board fired Hall as a special education teacher at North Mullins Primary School after she wrote a series of letters to the editor of the Marion Star-Mullins Enterprise and other newspapers. Hall also had filed Freedom of Information Act requests for district spending and travel by school board members.

Foil responded to the letters by purchasing a newspaper ad warning that people who criticize their employers "will be uprooted and blown away."

District Judge William B. Traxler Jr. "found the ad menacing and unquestionably threatening to Hall."

Documents show that Foil was keen for revenge against his critic.

In one memo Foil stated that he and the school principal "cannot say that the barrage of opinions and innuendos does not bother us" and hoped that "maybe enough rope will allow our gadfly to suspend herself in an awkward position."

In another memo, Foil confirmed that he told another North Mullins Primary teacher to tell Hall "to go to hell."

The superintendent also plotted to entrap Hall in an act of insubordination by refusing to give her three days off to receive an award in Washington, D.C. Believing she would attend anyway, Foil used $300 of district money to hire a photographer to take a picture of the teacher receiving the award.

But the sting didn't work. Though Foil had already written Hall's dismissal letter, the picture showed her daughter receiving the award.

Though she always received good job reviews and was never told she could lose her job, Hall was transferred to the district office in May 1991. Twenty of the 25 teachers who worked with Hall asked that she be transferred, saying she was rude and unprofessional.

A month later she was fired. Daniel W. Hurrle, then chairman of the board, told Hall that "her uncooperative and disrespectful attitude and behavior had eroded confidence in her ability to teach.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Reprinted from The State newspaper
July 28, 1994