School teacher sacked over old topless selfie in New York

New York, April 4

A 25-year-old school teacher in New York has been sacked for an old topless selfie that she had sent to her ex-boyfriend but went viral after a student obtained the photo, according to a media report.

Lauren Miranda, a former math teacher at Bellport Middle School here, took the topless selfie in 2016 and sent it to her then-boyfriend, who also works at the school, the Fox News reported.

“In January, a student somehow obtained the selfie and the image circulated through the school, the paper quoted Miranda’s attorney, John Ray, as saying during a news conference on Monday.

Miranda said she had no idea how the student obtained the photo. She was subsequently placed on paid administrative leave and then fired, the report said.

Miranda said she plans to file a USD 3 million federal lawsuit alleging gender discrimination unless she is reinstated, the report said.

“I loved my job, I never woke up in the morning and didn’t want to go. I loved my students, my faculty. I really thought this is where I was going to spend the next thirty years of my life,” she said.

According to court documents provided by Ray’s law firm, the district school had said Miranda was not a good role model because of the photo.

“My career has been ruined, my reputation has been tarnished, I have been stigmatised,” Miranda said.

“Everything I have worked so hard for since I was 18 years old has been stolen from me because of one innocuous selfie,” she added.

Ray accused the school district of sexism, arguing that a male teacher would not have been fired had the same thing happened to him.

“Anytime a man has ever exposed his chest, no one has ever commented or had any problem with it whatsoever. But when a woman displays her chest, as happened here, she gets fired from her job,” Ray was quoted as saying in the report. — PTI