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the text and exercise an ethic of caution in class discussions.
While no complaints were made against Sterzing throughout the rest of the race relation unit's instruction, the unit's assessment raised new concerns for select parents. One parent, who would later become a defendant in the case, asserted to both the administration and later the school board that the test Sterzing gave students promoted Sterzing's personal views to an extent that contrasted the parent's values. Sterzing was dismissed shortly thereafter, declared persona non grata, and compensated through the end of the 1967-1968 school year (Sterzing v. Fort Bend Independent School District, 1972).

The United States District Court that decided Sterzing's case was replete with strong opinions, finding fault in both Sterzing's teaching methods and the administration's approaches to them. The District Court ruled in Sterzing's favor in every sense save the request to be reinstated in his previous position, and Judge Bue, Jr. commented,
A teacher's methods are not without limits. Teachers occupy a unique position of trust in our society, and they must
handle such trust and the instruction of young people with great care. On the other hand, a teacher must not be
manacled with rigid regulations, which preclude full adaptation of the course to the times in which we liveit must
also be that teacher's duty to be exceptionally fair and objective in presenting his personally held opinionsin
addition to open discussion (Sterzing v. Fort Bend Independent School District, 1972).
Even if a teacher is "fair and objective in presenting his personally held opinions" (Sterzing v. Fort Bend Independent School District, 1972), the general consensus among the courts is that a teacher may not present his or her personal opinions if they stand in direct contrast to a school or district's adopted curriculum. The most apparent and most often cited examples of scenarios like these involve teachers' personal contradictions of messages, media, and board-mandated lessons promoting racial and/or orientation tolerance. Such a case recently appeared in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Robert Downs was a teacher at Leichman High School in Los Angeles in 1997. In response to messages posted on a school bulletin board advocating student tolerance during Gay and Lesbian Awareness Month, Downs posted anti-gay messages on a separate bulletin board. The messages were subsequently removed by the school, and Downs brought suit in

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