Tanya Dixon-Neely, Teacher, Tells Student He Will Be Arrested For 'Disrespecting' Obama (VIDEO)

Amateur footage of Tanya Dixon-Neely, a social studies teacher at North Rowan High School in Spencer, N.C., telling a student he could be arrested for saying negative things about President Barack Obama has gone viral on the Internet, prompting school officials to launch an investigation, WBTV reports.

According to the station, Dixon-Neely has been placed on paid suspension pending the investigation's results.

The Salisbury Post reports that, in the nearly 10-minute video, the student can be heard saying Obama and GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney are both "just men" -- a statement the teacher refutes harshly.

“Listen, let me tell you something, you will not disrespect the president of the United States in this classroom,” Dixon-Neely says in the video.

Later in the video, the student maintains that freedom of speech allows people to say what they want without fear of punishment. But according to the footage, Dixon-Neely didn't let the discussion end there.

“Do you realize that people were arrested for saying things bad about Bush?” she's heard saying in the video. “Do you realize you are not supposed to slander the president?”

While school officials would not comment on the incident in detail due to the open investigation, they told WBTV that it should serve as a lesson to teachers about their "interaction with students."

News & Record editorial writer Doug Clark wrote Monday that the video makes him question the education Dixon-Neely's students are receiving.

"My larger concern is, if this excerpt is indicative of her teaching style and classroom management skills -- her students may not be learning much of anything," Clark writes. "This is very embarrassing for North Rowan High School and Rowan-Salisbury Schools."

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article incorrectly that Dixon-Neely had been suspended without pay. The teacher was placed on a paid suspension. The article also previously misspelled Dixon-Neely's first name.

Comments

[ambivalencia]

10:30 AM on 09/20/2012

It sounds like she was trying to bring a political slant into her lesson plan with the very negative 'fact of the day' bit about Romney. That was her first mistake. Teachers have got to resist this type of thing, and try to maintain objectivity while representing the school. The kids were mouthy, but she is the adult, authority figure, and potential role model. Also..is it really necessary to yell everything? Geez.

[donk2u]

10:57 PM on 06/27/2012

Here is more about this "teacher"...she has filed bankruptcy 2 times in the last 9 years and lives in a 151,000 house check out what I found. Not exactly the type of teacher I would want teaching my kids. Sorry I had to redact her address for my own piece of mind but this is a public record

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=25k1kch&s=6

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=imkv3b&s=6

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=34fz7s9&s=6

[Lairs]

05:42 PM on 09/30/2012

WOW, did NOT know all of this. Thank you for posting.

[the pariah]

05:32 PM on 06/25/2012

How would you like to have that woman teaching your kids? Albert Einstein would go there for a year and come out as Tom Arnold.

[purplewg]

08:32 AM on 06/21/2012

She must have been schooled by Obama himself. My way or the highway.

Respect must be earned it can't be forced on you, bought, or titled. Obama has done nothing to earn my respect.

[jwmellott]

04:35 PM on 06/20/2012

She will be a captain in the united states police force when the left takes over.

[infonomics]

10:12 PM on 06/19/2012

What responsible parent would send their children to a public school system? Remember, even the children of liberals like Obama and Christopher Hitchens did not or do not attend public schools.

[dbrett480]

06:46 PM on 05/31/2012

I can't believe a high school teacher would be this stupid.

[SoCal71]

02:18 AM on 06/10/2012

Affirmative Action!

[diak0n0s]

10:16 PM on 06/19/2012

It's a Government school, not private.

[Dadfirst]

04:02 PM on 05/31/2012

This has not changed since I was a kid. Teachers always complain about pay and accountability. They idolize the left and despise the right. I have an idea, let's focus on education, and leave politics and religion out of the classroom. Embrace differences in the kids and encourage free thinking.

Why do teachers feel the need to try to "indoctrinate" all of their students into the liberal way of thinking?

[hopeisalive]

05:24 PM on 11/11/2012

Have you ever been a teacher? Have you ever had to get and keep the attention of between 25 and 35 teenagers at one time for an hour or more and then repeat the performance for another 4 times. Maybe you might be able to find a reason why teachers tend not to like the right as it seems that they find all sorts of things to complain about the teacher yet forget that the main person who is failing many times is the parent. I agree whole heartedly that indoctrination is not part of teaching, but I have seen similar if not worse coming from religious schools. The opening of the mind of a student is a wonderful thing. It is something that awes a teacher who sees it for the first time and continues to do that each and every time. The hardest part about being a teacher is to get through to the student to begin to think instead of just acting. That your last point that teachers all, at least from the tone of your post, are liberal is as true as saying that all people in a city are liberal. Do you think that the teachers in the colleges founded by Reverend Billy Graham are liberal? Do you think that the teachers of the fundamentalist and apostolic churches would be tolerated if they were liberal? Don't you think that the teachers in those schools seek to indoctrinate their students to their way of thinking?

[lobsterhead2]

06:08 PM on 05/27/2012

teachers like this woman are a perfect example of why our schools fail. teachers who are dumber than the students drag then all down.

[Janice Anderson Liptak]

06:56 PM on 05/25/2012

It is obvious that these students pushed her buttons deliberately. You can hear the mocking, laughter, and disrespectful tones of the "class clowns". She needed to drop the conversation and refuse to allow herself drawn into this confrontation. This is all these "clowns" wanted....a reaction....and, they got it. The parents need to come down on these students for instigating the confrontation and for being disrespectful. The teacher needs to learn how to control and keep the upper-hand, without letting the emotions get the best of the situation. This is called classroom management.

[CP061]

07:32 PM on 05/25/2012

Have worked in this type setting it is the teacher that should control the students. It is also the teacher who needs to accurate instruct students regarding our social standards and planned for this type of engagement and how to address. You can talk about holding the parents responsible but that will never take place throughout our control.

[Mark One]

07:47 AM on 06/27/2012

Typical left wing comment.Blame the kid for the stupid statements made by the stupid teacher.

[Charles Martel]

04:35 AM on 05/25/2012

The same attitude as this lady, except she was even less intelligent and did it with high school students!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=HSwgerG34s0&NR=1

[Charles Martel]

04:19 AM on 05/25/2012

I never realized how good the education I got was and how bad most people got until the internet. Comment sections are filled with obvious morons who cannot form sentences, express ideas, use basic correct spelling, and even sound like they have an IQ above 75. A lot of it has to do with the teachers like Tanya Dixon-Neely. At this point and in many situations, a child can be home-schooled and get a much better education. Social skills may suffer to a degree but it's better than teachers like Tanya Dixon-Neely. Right now, colleges down south are scrambling through their databanks and praying she did not graduate from their school because that will come out and be a serious black mark. (no pun intended)

[legnotsothrilled]

11:42 AM on 06/20/2012

I agree, Charles Martel. I thank my lucky stars I didn't go to a public school. This "teacher" even uses pathetic ghetto speak "you will not 'disrespect' the POTUS"....What an utter fool. Yet, she won't be fired. Our country is in deep trouble.....The teachers can't even speak proper English. Geesh.

[SCMS Art]

10:09 PM on 05/24/2012

1. She may have taken the response/topic to far with her explanation, but I think she made some valid points with her madness. 2. Why was this videoed? Why did the student pick this particular day and teacher to record this particular discussion. 3. One it went to far, cause after she asked him to be quiet the first 2 times he should have been removed from the classroom and the use of profanity should have been enough to warrant discipline action. 4. Her point regardless of political views is justified, "you should not disrespect any US President, past or present", something that we all should learn from. (see also Dixie Chicks) 5. You had a failing class clown and disruptive student that knew a teacher's pressure point and pushed it to get an uproar going in class. She lost her cool, bad form, but she managed to bring it back together and make it clear that you should not disrespect any POTUS. It is easy to knock or blame the actions of teachers, methods of a teacher, vocabulary/grammar usage, political view, beliefs or when your child fails, but 90% of the people that point that finger at public school teachers will never trade places with one on a good day. A day that she did not have.

[CP061]

07:35 PM on 05/25/2012

The question was not whether the students should or should not disrespect POTUS, the question was whether "what" the student said "was" disrespectful of POTUS. In this case, the teacher felt that the student saying POTUS bullied someone in school was disrespectful. Per POTUS, he had bullied someone and the student making this statement was correct. This teacher is horrible and should not be teaching any students anywhere. She cannot control her class and curriculum for these students should have been followed.

[massimo]

05:37 PM on 05/26/2012

what, are you a paid union rep or something? the way this teacher was treatin her students, and the sheer ignirance she dishes out is COMPLETELY UNNACEPTABLE. Blaming her students, who seem to be far more rational and reasonable than she is, IS NOT ACCPETABLE.

[MsLovePeace]

08:34 PM on 05/24/2012

I would like to point out that North Carolina is a non-union state. Maybe if they organized and got better pay, benefits, and job security for their faculty, they could attract greater intellect to the profession.
http://teachersunionexposed.com/state.cfm

[CP061]

07:37 PM on 05/25/2012

The interesting thing about Unions is that once they form its members continue to always complain and they still lose jobs in the long run. Also, this teacher not having union protection may actually benefit future students---let's hope!

[MsLovePeace]

09:33 PM on 05/25/2012

If not having a union makes it so easy to fire her, why do you think she wasn't already fired? Perhaps it's because the job is so unpleasant that you can't attract anyone better and the principal knows this. I am 100% sure this tape was no revelation to the administration at her school. This was not just a bad day.

[MsLovePeace]

12:34 PM on 05/26/2012

It must be that this teacher is a really amazing teacher and just had a bad a day.  Otherwise, she would have been fired for this behavior a long time ago.  If this is her typical conduct, why do you think they didn't fire her before, given that it's so much easier to fire teachers without union protection?  Perhaps poor pay and benefits don't attract the best people...and if the job were better compensated to begin with, she might never have secured a position in the first place.  You want your chicken to precede your egg because you say so.  My point has already been proven by evidence: absence of unions does not result in better teachers.  Even the test scores bear that out. 

[Dadfirst]

03:53 PM on 05/31/2012

What is this then?

http://www.ncae.org/

[MsLovePeace]

06:56 AM on 06/01/2012

It's not a collective bargaining unit. It does not negotiate the contract in any way. You can join the Sierra Club, donate money, which can towards supporting political and legal action. Similarly, an association can sponsor legislation or legal action in accordance with the mission and vision of its members. Associations, unlike unions, have no power to organize strikes, negotiate salary, file grievances, or advocate for better or safer working conditions. It can be a resource to teachers for available scholarships, professional development opportunities throughout the country, their health insurance, etc. The power of a union comes through collective bargaining and ultimately its ability to call a strike. This is not a union, which is why it uses the word association instead.

[Answerman ny]

06:48 PM on 05/24/2012

Does she understand what slander is?
Obviously not.
Fire her.