Teacher Who Was Fired Over a Topless Selfie Sues for $3 Million and Sparks Fierce Debate

Lauren Miranda is a 25-year-old math teacher at Bellport Middle School on Long Island, or, she was until recently. She was doing so well at her job that she had been recommended for a promotion, but all of that changed in an instant.

Now, Miranda has been fired from her job and is suing the school district. What happened? She sent a selfie to a male colleague, and somehow, she has no idea how, a teenage student got a hold of it.

Granted, the photo was a little risqué. It was a topless selfie, but she didn’t send it to the student or even post it on social media. She sent it to one colleague, and it was a man who she was in a relationship with at the time. She has no idea how the student got access to the photo.

One day, Ms. Miranda was called into the principal’s office and confronted about the photo. In a meeting that was mainly composed of men, a school administrator showed the topless photo of Ms. Miranda on a computer monitor. She felt humiliated and said, “That was probably the worst day that I endured.”

Ms. Miranda wasn’t fired right away. At first, she was put on paid administrative leave. Joseph Giani, the school district’s superintendent, told Ms. Miranda that he thought she should be fired because she wasn’t a good “role model” for the students. Now, without a job, she is suing the school district over unequal treatment of men and women.

Ms. Miranda’s lawyer, John Ray, claims that if the photo had been taken of a male teacher, they would never have considered firing him; therefore, they claim that Ms. Miranda shouldn’t have been fired either.

Mr. Ray said, “The superintendent and the school board — they didn’t get the memo that men and women are equal.”

For more on this controversial story, watch the video below.

All of this has us wondering, what about the male colleague who received the photo? Should he share responsibility in the fact that a student got ahold of the photo?

Do you think Ms. Miranda should have been fired over this photo, or is the school district in the wrong?