By Ben Velderman
EAGnews.org

PHILADELPHIA – In the end, Samantha Pawlucy discovered you really can’t go home again.

The Philly teen – who had been publicly embarrassed by her geometry teacher for wearing a Mitt Romney T-shirt to school – attempted to return to Charles Carroll High School on Tuesday.

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But the 16-year-old sophomore found it too uncomfortable to re-join the high school that has become sharply divided over the incident, and ended up sitting in the school office instead of the classroom, reports the Associated Press.

Earlier news reports indicate that Pawlucy had been threatened with physical violence by other students who support the popular math teacher. However, it doesn’t appear that the threat of violence was to blame for the Pawlucy’s discomfort on Tuesday.

Her father, Richard Pawlucy, said the girl will transfer to another school, possibly a charter school, the Associated Press reports.

The teacher, Lynette Gaymon, has apologized for the incident, saying that her remarks to Pawlucy were only meant to be “light and humorous.”

It’s important to remember that the original incident occurred on the sixteenth day of school. Gaymon and Pawlucy could not possibly have known each other well enough for Gaymon to feel justified in making such cutting jokes. (Gaymon said the Romney T-shirt was as offensive as wearing a KKK T-shirt.)

Does anyone think there’s anything “light and humorous” about a KKK joke?

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Neither do we.

In a just world, Gaymon would be the one leaving the school, not Pawlucy. But because Gaymon has bulletproof job protections through her union, district officials cannot fire her without undergoing a ludicrously expensive legal battle.

The result is that the bullying teacher gets to keep her job while her victim is forced to find peace and safety in another school.

This is the sad state of America’s public education system, which is only made possible by the nation’s teacher unions.