The Washington Post tells about a teacher in the DC area who somehow got a copy of The Passion of the Christ and showed it to his students in class -- at an elementary school:

As a teacher showed sixth-graders at the District's Malcolm X Elementary School parts of the movie "The Passion of the Christ," 11-year-old Cutairra Ransom was growing upset by the violence unfolding in front of her. ... After about 15 minutes of watching the R-rated film about the final hours of Jesus's life, Cutairra said she walked out of the room.

She was one of the 16 to 20 students who were shown the movie Tuesday at the public school, which is in the Congress Park neighborhood of Southeast Washington. D.C. school officials, who said sixth-graders should not be shown R-rated movies at school, have placed the teacher, Ronald Anthony, on leave with pay pending an investigation.

What's to investigate? All you need to know is that he showed them the film, which isn't in dispute. That means that Anthony did the following: he bootlegged the movie himself or has possession of a bootleg, a misdemeanor, and he showed an R-rated movie to children without their parents' permission. They'll be lucky to avoid being sued over the trauma. Oh, wait -- he has tenure, that lovely artifact that allows idiots like Anthony to feel that they have immunity from the consequences of their actions. Silly me.

Of course, there's also the matter of showing religious material in class -- which, of course, is also against the rules, and in this case almost deliciously ironic. A teacher at Malcolm X Elementary showed a film about the birth of the Christian religion; you can't find irony like this every day.

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