Can you be an effective guidance counselor even if there are racy bikini photos of you floating around the internet? According to the Department of Education, the answer is no. Tiffany Webb, a guidance counselor at Murry Bergtraum HS for Business Careers in Manhattan, was fired from her job after 12 years at the school because of sexy photos of her that she took well before she started working at the school.
Webb, 37, disclosed to the DOE that she had taken model shots between the age of 18 and 20, years before she became a city teacher in 1999. She's been investigated three times by the DOE, and spent some time in a "rubber room," because of them; but she has always been given satisfactory ratings, and been cleared to work again. Last year, days before she was due to get tenure, former principal Andrea Lewis claimed a student showed her a racy photo of her, which prompted the latest investigation.
Webb was dismissed for “conduct unbecoming” of a DOE employee soon after: "The inappropriate photos were accessible to impressionable adolescents," ruled a three-member chancellor’s committee. "That behavior has a potentially adverse influence on her ability to counsel students and be regarded as a role model." The dissenting vote argued that "she should not be punished for something that happened years ago.”
Now Webb is suing the DOE for wrongful termination, sex discrimination and violation of First Amendment rights—and she still wants to get her job back. To make matters worse, her lawyer noted that the photos have all been photoshopped as well, with her face on different bodies: “She had no control over it,” he said.
