How concerned are you with high school teachers' sex lives? Would you be comfortable knowing the children at your local high school were being taught by a man who had cheated on his wife? What about if they were taught by a woman who had dabbled in lesbianism while she was in college, or a man who had once had a threesome with his boyfriend while on summer vacation last year?
Do teachers have a right to keep their private lives private? And when should any aspect of one's sexual life or past ever be grounds for job termination?
These are just a few of the highly emotional and apparently difficult questions that arise when communities conduct modern-day witch hunts designed to root out, expose and shame people who have had semi-public sexual pasts. The targets of these hunts are usually individuals with sexual histories slightly more colorful than the norm, and often have been paid to have their consensual, sexual performances documented.
In the latest chapter of this fear-mongering crusade, Mike Beaudet, an investigative undercover reporter for FOX Boston, has placed English teacher and crew coach Kevin Hogan in the community's crosshairs, setting the stage for what appears to be the start of another one of these public crucifixions and character assassinations.
Hogan has served as the chair of the English department and crew coach at Mystic Valley Regional Charter School in Malden, Mass. since September. Besides having a decorated career as a rowing athlete and instructor, Hogan received his undergrad at Northwestern University, his Masters degree at Boston College, and cumulatively has had over 20 years of experience teaching at the secondary and college levels. Aside from his tutorial work, Hogan also edited the very recently released first memoir written by a member of the African-American transgender community, Toni Newman's I Rise. And he also happens to have had a brief stint in the adult film industry that involved some website work and the filming of three videos: Magnus studio's Fetish World 1, Top Dog Production's Just Gone Gay 8, and another more explicitly titled film with Epic Distribution.
And yet somehow the porn work that he did in the last couple of years when he was living in Los Angeles overshadows and invalidates all of his experience and qualifications as an educator.
Hot on the investigative hunt, reporter Mike Beaudet allegedly received a tip leading him to a site that showcased some of Hogan's past work, which he then revealed to the school. Armed with visuals from the films, he also confronted Hogan, on camera.
"You starred in some pretty interesting movies," FOX reporter Mike Beaudet said to Hogan as he tried to bait him.
"Do your students know that you've been in these movies?" Beaudet asked. "Do you really think it's appropriate to be working with kids?"
"Hytch Cawke, that's an interesting name. Where'd you come up with that?" Beaudet smarmily shot at Hogan as the teacher got into his own car.
In their investigation, FOX Undercover also spoke with several parents from the school, to get their reactions. "I'm disturbed. I'm surprised," said one parent to whom Beaudet handed visuals from the Fetish World website. She went on to say that she thought "this is scary," in the same breath that she also noted that "the kids really love him. He's been a great addition to the team."
When the FOX 25 reporter asked another parent if she was "bothered" by the revelation, she said, "Very much so. Especially since he's teaching our children. Every day. It does bother me a lot."
Hogan is on paid administrative leave while the school investigates, and the charter school told FOX 25 in a statement that they "value the health and safety of their students." That's great and all, but how does the students' general "health" and "safety" relate to the uncovering of Hogan's past in porn?
Sorry, but was any of the sex non-consensual? Did the films feature use of illegal substances? Or were they filmed with minors?
Nope.
Perhaps it was filmed while Hogan was employed at Mystic Valley Regional?
Nope.
Also, according to FOX 25, the school sent a note out to parents today explaining that they are clear that all job applicants must be "candid and forthright" about their past employment. This statement appears as if Mystic is beginning to set itself up for an easy out should they ultimately decide to hand Hogan his walking papers. But now that this undercover report has broken and attempted to fan the flames of sexphobes and arch-conservatives, will there be any way Hogan can keep his job?
Should he be entirely to blame for not including something like Just Gone Gay 8 on his résumé when it has nothing to do with teaching? Do you tell potential employers about the summer you worked at a frozen yogurt store three years ago when you're applying for a marketing job? And would Hogan have had any shot at the job if he had admitted to his past film work and given administrators a chance to dig deeper and find out exactly what type of porn it was?
A spokesman for Massachusetts' Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, the organization that gave Hogan his educator's license, told FOX 25, "We expect teachers to hold a very high moral standard. They are role models for students."
How exactly is this moral standard being determined, and who is doing the determining? Surely it must be people with absolutely immaculate "moral" records.
And how could exercising one's sexuality and filming it in this manner be considered immoral? Or, for that matter, dangerous in some way, or seriously criminal?
If someone has gotten a speeding violation before or cheated on their taxes, is it appropriate for them to be working with kids? Isn't that a reflection of a reckless person who chooses to ignore the law? What about someone who smokes cigarettes or has been married a number of times?
The very purposeful and public exposure of Hogan's past work is particularly disturbing considering that it seems to continue a growing trend illuminated recently as other porn stars have been fired or publicly scolded for aiding the education process of children.
In August, Sean Loftis, a Florida substitute teacher who had filmed gay adult movies under the name Collin O'Neal, had his teaching credentials revoked once the Miami-Dade County public school system found about his porn past. This happened even though he, too, had given up filming porn to pursue teaching.
Earlier this month, parents of children at Emerson Elementary School in Compton, Calif. expressed outrage that recently retired porn star Sasha Grey had read to first- and third-grade students at the school for Read Across America Day.
I'm sorry, did these former porn stars flash these kids at any point? Solicit sex from them or screen an old film they starred in? Was there a moment when any of them encouraged these kids to follow in their footsteps and pursue porn careers?
Also this month, a high school teacher in Stockton, Calif. was put on leave after it was found that she had maintained pornographic websites -- including mysluttyteachers.com -- from a laptop the school had given her. Perhaps in this situation, since the teacher was operating these sites while employed as a teacher and using domain names that capitalized on her profession, public rebuke of this incident makes sense.
But in the incidences of Grey, Hogan, and Loftis? Surely the public condemnation of this former porn stars betray people's puritanical sexphobia.
It's really something the way America can hear account after account from women who insist that they were sexually harassed by a particular Republican presidential candidate, yet still a huge population of folks insists that it would vote for him. And isn't it remarkable how in the case of another Republican presidential candidate who once cheated on his cancer-stricken wife, we can so conveniently, come election season, suddenly forgive him for what most would surely agree to be a morally egregious extramarital affair?
Are these men more easily forgiven because their "transgressions" weren't as thoroughly documented, or because they engaged in hetero-erotic encounters?
Is it perhaps even more outrageous and incomprehensible to people that Kevin Hogan performed in these homosexual films though friends and associates link him to relationships that would otherwise be considered traditionally heterosexual? FOX 25 even chose to go so far as to air a clip from Epic Distribution's movie, where Hogan begins the scene with a sweet admission of his own inexperience: "Hi, this is Hytch. And I just answered the ad and now I'm here to see what it's like to be with a guy." Acting or not, does that make Hogan's "crime" all the more reprehensible in the eyes of his accusers?
Though I'd be absolutely shocked if the outcome of Hogan's evaluation results in anything other than his termination, it is at least somewhat comforting to see many residents in the school's area and students commenting on FOX 25's web article, decrying the nature of the report, the tactics of the reporter, and coming to the support of Kevin Hogan. It's a remarkable thing, the Christian ethic of forgiveness.