[This is part of an "open letter to Hemant Mehta," a public high school math teacher has been targeted by Laurie Higgins and the Illinois Family Institute for his statements on his blog.]

I have never in any context suggested that you should be fired or that you should resign [...] [M]y goal is to provide information to District 204 parents - particularly IFI readers - about the nature of the ideas you express and endorse on your public blog so that they can make informed decisions as to whether they want their children to spend a school year under your tutelage.

[...]

You fail to acknowledge a central point that I addressed in my two articles, which is that many teens are unduly influenced by emotion and the cult of personality, and therefore are predisposed to look favorably on the ideas of teachers whom they find cool or charismatic or funny or kind or anti-tradition. Adolescence is also a time of rebellion which is why many teens are attracted to rebellions, anti-establishment people and ideas.

If students search your name and come upon your blog, they will be exposed to your endorsement and promotion of ideas that some parents may find deeply troubling. If students have you as their teacher, like you, and develop a relationship with you - as happens often in high school - they will be more likely to look favorably on and be influenced by your ideas than those students who have little or no personal connection to you. This is the reason that many parents care deeply about role models.

It's the reason there were some recent stories about parents being upset that a high school cheerleading coach posed in her private life for Playboy magazine, and why some parents would not want their children in the class of a teacher who in their free time on a public forum promotes racist views or denies the historicity of the Holocaust.

[...]

If you cannot produce any proof from my writing to support your claim that I am "going after" your job, please retract that statement.