'I wanted to laugh': Student whose teacher said he could be arrested for criticizing Obama speak outs



North Carolina teacher Tanya Dixon-Neely said student couldn't 'disrespect' President in her classroom

She said 'arrests have been made for speaking poorly of George W. Bush' but Mitt Romney gibes were fine



Dixon-Neely has been suspended with pay



The high school student who recorded his teacher yelling at him and saying he could be arrested for criticizing President Barack Obama says he wanted to laugh during his instructor's rant.

Hunter Rogers has been revealed as the student who used his cell phone camera to tape the interaction.



He said his social studies teacher at North Rowan High School in Spencer, North Carolina, has long been biased toward Obama during class discussions.

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Standing up for himself: Hunter Rogers says he was always taught that he had a right to criticize the president

'Honestly, at the time i wanted to laugh at her,' Hunter told Fox News .



'I've been taught all my life that nobody can take your opinion or nobody can take your freedom of speech and she was telling me that I could be arrested for slander.'

The teacher, identified as Tanya Dixon-Neely by WBTV , has since been suspended.

The argument began when Ms Dixon-Neely started talking about a recent report that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney had bullied a gay classmate in high school.

As the teacher explains the allegations against Romney, Hunter asks: 'Didn't Obama bully somebody, though?'

'No disrespect': A teacher at North Rowan High School (pictured) in North Carolina told a student that he could get arrested for talking badly about the president

The teacher responds that she was not aware of Mr Obama being a bully. She begins to raise her voice telling the student not to make 'degrading' comments.

The student tries to reply: 'If you're going to talk [about] Romney...'

But he is interrupted by the teacher, who starts shouting.

'Uh-uh! Stop! Stop! No! Because there's no comparison. He [Mr Romney] is running for President. Obama is the President.'

Rogers says this was typical behavior for the teacher.



'She always have open discussions about the president and candidates. And she doesn't want to hear anything but what she believes,' he said.

'And if you disagree you get berated and put down. I just decided to finally get some proof of it.'



'Stop! No!': When a student asked whether Obama was ever a bully, the teacher became enraged and demanded that the student say nothing negative about him

His mother, Gina Rogers, said she was horrified when her son played the recording for her.



'My biggest concern is that then this teacher is responsible for teaching my child and hundreds of others and she is not teaching them factual information,' she told Fox.



The 10-minute video uploaded to YouTube last Monday appears to be taken from a cell phone where only voices can be heard and it does not show anyone inside the classroom.

In the recording, Rogers says: 'If you're going to talk trash about one side, you gotta talk trash about the other.'



However, the teacher disagreed. She said, 'Let me tell you this: you've got to realize this man is wanting to be what Obama already is, OK?'

She continues, screaming: 'That's disrespect! That's disrespect!'

The student contends that the teacher is the one being disrespectful - to Mr Romney. This infuriated the teacher.

'No comparison': When the student asked why it was OK to discuss Mitt Romney, the teacher said he should be treated differently as a candidate

She insists that the student follow her rule.

The teacher cried out: 'You will not disrespect the President of the United States!'

The student retorted: 'I'll say what I want.'

She angrily counters: 'Not about him you won't.'

As the exchange went on, the student told the teacher that he had different beliefs than her and when he asked a question about Mr Obama and bullying, the teacher got 'defensive' and 'freaked out.'

Then he tries to reason with the teacher that plenty of people have talked badly about President George W. Bush.

'They can't take that away': The student did not believe the teacher when she said people have been arrested for talking bad about George W Bush

The teacher answered that the student needed to stop slandering the current President because 'people were arrested for saying rather poor things about Bush.'

Unconvinced, the student offers his viewpoint: 'You would have to say some pretty f***ed up crap ... to be arrested.

'They cannot take away your right to have your opinion or your freedom of speech. They can't take that away... unless you threaten the President.'

The teacher demands to know whether the student was aware that the police do not always read Miranda rights when a person gets arrested.

The student responds: 'Well, I've never been arrested.'

Biased: Gina Roberson (right), Hunter's mother, said she is concerned that someone so biased was teaching her son and hundreds of other students

After some minimal discussion on how government officials sometimes say negative things about presidents, the teacher make her case that negative comments about Mr Obama will not be tolerated inside her classroom.

School officials who have reviewed the video say they will not share the teacher's name because it is a personnel matter.

The woman has not been removed from the district.

In a statement to the Salisbury Post , district spokeswoman Rita Foil said : 'T his incident should serve as an education for all teachers to stop and reflect on their interaction with students.'

Political analyst Michael Bitzer told the news agency that he was not aware of any arrests of people for negative comments they made about Mr Bush.



He said: 'I think what this broke down to was a perceived personal slight by an instructor against someone she sees in a positive view, and things just went out of control from there.'

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