Art teacher sues after being fired for painting with butt
RICHMOND - A high school art teacher fired after officials learned he moonlighted by creating paintings using his bare buttocks and other body parts sued his former employers on Thursday.
Stephen Murmer was fired in January after Chesterfield County Public Schools officials saw a YouTube video of Murmer wearing a swim thong and a Groucho Marx mask, demonstrating how he applies paint to his backside, then presses it onto a canvas.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Richmond by the American Civil Liberties Union, said Murmer's firing violates his First Amendment rights. It also alleges that after he was suspended from teaching in December, school officials ordered him not to discuss his suspension even as they commented on it in news interviews.
The complaint seeks unspecified damages and legal fees from the county school board, a school district personnel official and the principal at Monacan High School, where he taught.
School officials had not seen the lawsuit early Thursday afternoon and do not comment on litigation, said spokeswoman Debra Marlow.
Murmer, said in a telephone interview from Alabama, where he now lives, that the school district deprived him not only of his right to free expression but his rights to due process.
"This lawsuit is about a corrupt little county in Virginia and making sure they can't do this to anyone else ever again," he said.
Murmer paints under the pseudonym "Stan Murmur," and displays some of his work on his Web site.
One acrylic-on-canvas work titled "Tulip Butts" shows the red imprint of a backside representing the open petals of a tulip with an imprint between them from an adjacent body part that represents a flower's stamen.
The lawsuit said Murmer's paintings sell in a range from $600 to $4,800, and that he uses his own body parts and those of models to "brush" or "stamp" images onto canvas.
Rebecca K. Glenberg, an ACLU lawyer who is one of Murmer's attorneys, said the school board fired Murmer for art created on his own time that he "scrupulously kept private from his students." He adopted the pen name to ensure that his students didn't discover his private work by using Internet search engines such as Google or Yahoo, she said. Murmer received a teacher of the year award in 2002, according to the lawsuit.
"In this case, we have someone who engaged in legitimate artistic expression protected by the First Amendment and furthermore did everything in his power to keep his art work separate from his teaching," Glenberg said. "He used a different name, he didn't discuss his art in class, and he did not do or say anything improper in school or a class environment."
In October 2003, however, Murmer appeared on a short-lived local cable television program, "Unscrewed with Martin Sargent." He was introduced under his pseudonym and wore the mask and a white towel wrapped turban-style on his head to conceal his identity. After an interview, he removes a white bathrobe and demonstrates his painting technique.
The video was posted online, and school officials first saw it in 2004, according to the complaint. School officials discussed it with Murmer, he agreed to remove photos of three paintings from his Web site, and he was told there would be no further action, the complaint contends.
On Dec. 8, 2006, according to the lawsuit, school officials summoned him from his classroom, told him the video created so much discussion among Monacan students that it was disruptive, and suspended him. A month later, the school board fired him.
ma police, boston ma police, massachusetts police, massachusetts police, mass state police, mass police, ma, mass, massachusetts, massachusetts, massachutes, massachusetts law, massachusetts polece, police, officer, police officer, cops, police gear, law enforcement, police duty gear, state police, sheriff, law, police supply, police agency directory, police agency, police department, traffic officer, police dept, state trooper, dispatcher, massachusetts county sheriff, massachusetts sheriff, massachusetts department of corrections, ma doc, doc, dept of corrections, police information, civil service, ma civil service, massachusetts crime, police training, police academy, ma police academy, massachusetts officers, masscop, masscops, mpa, bpa, ibpoa, police association, massachusetts police news, massachusetts crime news, mass most wanted, police career information, police patrol, police administration, police books, crime scene training, police discussion, crime discussions, cops
About MassCops, the home for Massachusetts law enforcement.
The Massachusetts Law Enforcement Network opened in 1998 and is now a part of the New England Police Network The site is a pro-police discussion forum intended for sworn police officers and civilian law enforcement officials as well as those interested in pursuing a career in law enforcement here in Massachusetts.
The goal of The Massachusetts Law Enforcement Network is to provide an informal network of law enforcement officials here in Massachusetts for educational and informational purposes.
The forum covers many topics such as Police Related News Articles, Agency & Profession Discussions, Police Training as well as Law Enforcement Career Information.
The Massachusetts Law Enforcement Network and The New England Police Network (NEPN) and it's network sites are privately owned websites/domains and are not affiliated with or endorsed by any government association or agency.
MassCops (masscops.com) and (masscop.com) are privately owned are not affiliated with or endorsed by the Massachusetts Coalition of Police (masscop.org)
ma police, boston ma police, massachusetts police, massachusetts police, mass state police, mass police, ma, mass, massachusetts, massachusetts, massachutes, massachusetts law, massachusetts polece, police, officer, police officer, cops, police gear, law enforcement, police duty gear, state police, sheriff, law, police supply, police agency directory, police agency, police department, traffic officer, police dept, state trooper, dispatcher, massachusetts county sheriff, massachusetts sheriff, massachusetts department of corrections, ma doc, doc, dept of corrections, police information, civil service, ma civil service, massachusetts crime, police training, police academy, ma police academy, massachusetts officers, masscop, masscops, mpa, bpa, ibpoa, police association, massachusetts police news, massachusetts crime news, mass most wanted, police career information, police patrol, police administration, police books, crime scene training, police discussion, crime discussions, cops