A high school teacher from Long Island, Veronica Welsh, landed in some hot water recently when, through her personal Facebook page, she referred to some students at her school as “racist” for donning pro-Trump garb during “Spirit Week” at Smithtown High School West (Smithtown, New York).

Here is the exact wording of her entry, which has since been taken down:

“This week is spirit week at Smithtown H.S. West. It's easy to spot which students are racist, by the Trump gear they're sporting for USA day.”

According to reporting by Gateway Pundit, the superintendent of the Smithtown Central School District called the teacher’s post “extremely unfortunate” and “highly inappropriate.” The teacher has, reportedly, been disciplined, although the precise nature of her punishment is unknown.

The teacher’s post, as well as the incident, more broadly, reminds us that teachers are in the kind of unique and sensitive profession that demands they be held to a different standard of behavior than that which may be applied to the rest of us; to claim otherwise is blindingly ignorant and foolish.

If I work in a generic office environment populated only by adults, and make a Facebook post that says any of my co-workers who wear Trump shirts are racist, or those who wear Clinton t-shirts are communists, that’s bad enough…but whatever we deem the potential fallout of that statement to be in that environment, it pales in comparison to the damage that may be wrought if a high school teacher says those things about his or her young charges.

In the current climate, wherein so many think rules are outdated and social anarchy should reign, the idea that primary and secondary school teachers should keep political thoughts to themselves is seen as laughable. That’s too bad, because, laughter aside, it’s precisely the way it SHOULD be, for reasons so apparent that having to detail them would, itself, be a joke.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large