Ito's case has drawn widespread support from academics, activists and civil liberties experts across the country. "This is not an isolated employee matter," said Anita Earls, Director of Advocacy, Center for Civil Rights, University of North Carolina School of Law. "Forsyth Tech's indefensible and unconstitutional treatment of Elizabeth Ito demonstrates that the repressive spirit of the Patriot Act has a very wide reach." A November fundraiser co-hosted by faculty members from the University of North Carolina, Guilford College, High Point University, North Carolina Agricultural & Technical University, and Wake Forest University raised nearly $2000 for Ito's defense and has sparked the formation of informal networks of progressive faculty support. Ito's case has received national attention through newspaper stories, radio interviews and articles on numerous websites including commondreams.org, michaelmoore.TK, and progressive.org.

Forsyth Tech has reacted aggressively to Ito's charge that her job was terminated because she voiced an unpopular political opinion. In a press conference before the October 8 personnel hearing the college's president Gary Green waived its own confidentiality policy and issued a statement charging Ito with "a lack of competence, professionalism, and ability to meet standards of professional behavior." Those charges were struck down by the personnel committee, but the president's statement remained on the college website for a month following the hearing. The college deleted press release from its website under pressure from Ito's lawyer.

One of Forsyth Tech's chief remaining charges against Ito is that she had "difficulty in accepting the view of [her] supervisors that class time should be devoted to matters germane to the curriculum of the class." Ironically, when President George W. Bush visited Forsyth Tech on November 7 during a fund raising trip to Winston-Salem, classes were cancelled for the entire day on one of the college's two campuses. Students were not invited to hear the president speak. "Nothing could underscore more dramatically the way varying political views are handled at Forsyth Tech," said Ito. "I spent ten minutes of class time criticizing U.S. policies in Iraq and I lost my job. The architect of U.S. policies in Iraq comes to Winston-Salem and students are done out of a full day of class time. The argument that politics had nothing to do with my dismissal is simply ludicrous."

Background on Elizabeth Ito's Dismissal

On Friday, March 28, 2003 Elizabeth Ito, English teacher at Forsyth Technical Community College, held a ten-minute class discussion about the Iraq war, during which she expressed her opposition to the U. S. policy. After two students complained, Susie Keener, Chair of the Department of Humanities/Communication, told Ito that she should not have shared her personal opinion with the students, who might have felt uncomfortable disagreeing with her. Over the weekend she devised a class activity intended to allow any student who might have been reluctant to speak a chance to state his/her opinion safely. On Monday, the students anonymously wrote a response to the prompt, "How I Feel About the War." They then exchanged papers several times, and each person read aloud the paper in his/her hand.

During the rest of the week, Keener and John Slade, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, met with Ito three times for several hours. Finally, Slade asked Ito to promise never to mention the war in class again. Ito replied that she had no intention of revisiting the topic, but she refused to swear an oath. Slade replied, "That's insubordination." A three-page disciplinary letter, which declared the matter resolved, was placed in her file.

Upon joining the faculty at FTCC, Ito had received strong recommendations from Guilford Technical Community College in Greensboro, N. C., where she taught for five years. At FTCC, prior to criticizing the war in her class, Ito's performance evaluations were satisfactory to excellent. One month after the incident, she received an overwhelmingly negative annual evaluation. Then, on May 15 Forsyth Tech informed Ito that her services were no longer needed.

Many of Ito's former students have urged the school to reinstate her, saying that her classes were interesting and challenging. One of the students who originally complained to the FTCC administration told Michelle Johnson, a reporter for the Winston-Salem Journal, that he did not think Ito should have been fired for her remarks.

Ito appealed her dismissal to the school's personnel committee, contending that her teaching contract was not renewed for political reasons--impermissible grounds for dismissal according to school policy. The day before her hearing, Gary Green, president of FTCC, convened a press conference in accordance with a law allowing the release of a state employee's confidential personnel information in cases where the integrity of the institution is being threatened. At the press conference, Green charged Ito with "a lack of competence, professionalism, and ability to meet standards of professional behavior." He further stated that she "was at times unprepared to teach class, dismissing her class early because of a failure to prepare."

The October 8 appeals hearing lasted four hours and included testimony by Ito, Keener, Slade, and Green. The next day the personnel committee, which is comprised of five members of the school's board of trustees, issued the following verdict in a letter hand-delivered to Ito at her home:

From a review of the evidence the Committee is convinced that your political views were neither a basis nor a reason for the non-tendering of your contract. Rather, the committee has found that the non-tendering was based on what was perceived by your supervisors to be the unprofessional manner in which you addressed your class on March 28, your insubordination in not agreeing to attend a meeting after being requested to do so by your immediate supervisor, your attitude in interacting with your supervisors, and your difficulty in accepting the view of your supervisors that class time should be devoted to matters germane to the curriculum of the class.

The president's charges of "lack of competence" and "failure to prepare" were not upheld by the personnel committee.

Responding to the verdict, Ito said, "If FTCC had a legitimate reason to fire me, why did they have to invent charges of incompetence, which they were then unable to support in the hearing?"

Statements by FTCC students

"I have never had an English teacher that I thought was as qualified and talented."

"Her skills as an instructor are excellent! She is energetic and engages student participation due to her enthusiasm. . . . [W]e would like to see more instructors like her!"

"I believe that FTCC will be hard pressed to fill her vacancy with another instructor that will bring to the job the same genuine attitude of caring for students and FTCC."

"I highly recommend her as an instructor to anyone who has a true desire to learn! . . . She is too valuable of an asset for FTCC to lose!"

"I honestly feel that Miss Ito is a rarity among instructors, and a true asset to the Winston-Salem community."

"If this was a factor in Ms. Ito's dismissal, then I would dare say that other FTCC instructors should be dismissed for not keeping classroom discussions in line with the curriculum."

Statements by Teachers

"[W]ho among us has kept strictly to the course material? It seems a narrow view of education that an educator may not address important issues, especially those which involve a crisis such as going to war. . . . As college and university professors, we need to stand in solidarity with Elizabeth." --Professor, High Point University

"I wonder if you refused to renew the contract of instructors who expressed pro-war opinions. Because FTTC's refusal to renew Ms. Ito's contract will have a chilling effect on instructors' willingness to discuss current events, it will diminish their effectiveness." --former N.C. Community College English instructor

"The fact that her political opinions may differ from those of her students, her colleagues or the local community in general should have no bearing on her right to voice, discuss or integrate those opinions into her teaching. The college owes Ito an apology." --Professor, Wake Forest University

"Ms. Ito has been targeted not for spending ten minutes of class time, but due to her political opinions." --A concerned teacher, Hawaii

"Censoring political speech on campus is reprehensible -- all the more so in the case of an untenured, vulnerable faculty member whose political perspective is unpopular. As academics, we should be defending her right to freely express her thoughts in her classroom, whether or not those thoughts make all her students happy (after all, our mission is not to make them feel good, but to teach them to think critically). Her dismissal smacks of McCarthyism, and risks associating your institution with infringement of academic freedom." -- Professor, Syracuse University

"I wish her luck and much attention. I think hers is an important battle in the current struggle to stem the erosion of personal freedoms." --Professor, California State University, Northridge

"These kind of reprisals against anyone who questions the war are a threat to our intellectual and political freedoms, and your case is one of the most egregious." --Assistant Professor, American University