A Spanish teacher has been suspended from a prestigious New York City school after she sucked a topless man’s nipples while on camera during a Zoom lesson last year.
According to the New York Post, students at the “prestigious Columbia Secondary School for Math, Science, and Engineering” were treated to a remote learning session via a Zoom conference call in which Amanda K. Fletcher, a 37-year-old Spanish teacher, “appeared to suck the nipple of an unidentified topless male” as she “rocked her head back and forth,” per the Special Commissioner of Investigation. After the sex themed theatrics concluded, “Fletcher ‘resumed teaching and discussing a worksheet,’ a student told probers.”
The Post explains that “Following this act, Fletcher’s face turned in full view of the screen, and she gyrated her shoulders and smiled.” Prior, “students watched Fletcher ‘eating spaghetti’ with the shirtless man behind her.” The incident occurred with only 12 minutes left in the Zoom class.
Videos of the sexual act, which took place on September 30 – only two weeks after the school district began teaching via Zoom – were shared by students via Snapchat and other social media. Fletcher was “reassigned” in October, and was eventually suspended. It is unclear when Fletcher’s suspension became effective, and she made $105,588 last year. According to the New York Post, she is still on the city payroll.
This is not the first high profile example of teacher misconduct since the emergence of virtual learning via Zoom. In February of this year, National File reported that Marc Schack, a Maryland teacher, was given “administrative leave” after he was caught masturbating on a Zoom call with disabled and special education students still watching. “After being caught masturbating on camera as children watched, Schack simply said ‘my bad’ and was placed on administrative leave. The school’s administration claims the administrative leave is unrelated to his shocking performance in front of the children, however, and is simply because they misplaced his background check file,” National File reported. Schack also appears at children’s parties dressed as a pirate named Captain Silly Bones.
Such incidents have become an issue in governments and internationally as well. Last year, a man apparently forgot to turn off his Zoom camera feed as he appeared completely nude during a Zoom call with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, and earlier this year, a lawyer in Texas found himself unable to disable a Zoom filter that made him appear as a cat. Exasperated, the lawyer told the judge, “I’ve got my assistant here, she’s trying to, but, uh, I’m prepared to go forward with it if that’s – I’m here live, it’s not, I’m not a cat.”
Perhaps the most high profile example of the unintended consequences of Zoom conference calls is the case of journalist Jeffrey Toobin, the former CNN analyst and New Yorker writer who was fired after exposing himself and masturbating while on a Zoom call with his colleagues.