Why do good liberals tut-tut due process?

Kevin Drum and Matt Yglesias both have posts up today that I have to believe were written specifically to irritate me. Well ok, maybe not me specifically but I am annoyed enough to interrupt my very busy day to comment and hopefully correct Kevin and Matt's misconceptions. I'll let Yglesias summarize their view,

It’s famously difficult to fire public school teachers once they’ve gotten it through their first couple of years on the job. This leads to a lot of problems for kids, and sometimes to wacky scenarios like New York’s “rubber rooms.”

The "Rubber Rooms" are where teachers who are awaiting disposition of their disciplinary case are assigned. The teachers do not interact with students and are essentially paid to do nothing. Which, I agree, is a problem. We shouldn't be paying people to do nothing but there is a big issue at hand which Kevin and Matt spend absolutely zero time considering much less even mentioning - due process.

We all remember due process, right? It's the Constitutional guarantee found in the 5th and 14th Amendments that says that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.

In a famous employment law case known as Loudermill the Supreme Court found that public employees have a property interest in their employment. Because of that property right all public employees, including "bad" teachers, must be afforded due process. The Court requires a pre-termination hearing in which the accused can respond and post-termination administrative process.

The reason there are teachers in "rubber rooms" is not because it is "difficult to fire teachers" but rather because the school district in question does not have the capacity to carry out the neccesary hearings in a timely manner. Kevin and Matt are speaking about the due process rights of teachers through a very mendacious right-wing frame.

The right seeks to confuse the issue in order to draw attention away from the Constiutional rights of the teachers and instead direct the public's ire at the system which won't let school districts get rid of bad teachers. And who specifically is the target of that ire? Teachers unions of course. The union has a duty to protect the rights of their members and one way that unions do that is to hold administrators accountable to the Constiutionally guaranteed processes. Right-wingers hate unions, particularly teachers unions. They also dislike the idea of due process, though that is a far less popular position. So with a little word play they can undermine the idea of due process while attacking teachers unions. All by merely complaining about the difficulty of firing "bad" teachers.

It's a neat trick I must admit. I only wish good liberals like Kevin and Matt were not so anxious to nod along in agreement about the supposed difficulty in terminating teachers while blithely ignoring the broader issue of due process. I'm sure that Kevin and Matt are merely unwittingly undermining due process and the proper role of labor unions and not intenionally doing the right's dirty work for them. Hopefully they'll both see this and re-think their reflexive support of this duplicitous right-wing frame.