A San Antonio town meeting turned into a verbal skirmish when local high school teacher Jonathan Bryant, accompanied by several students gathered in support, called George Rodriguez, local Tea Party president, a “Nazi.” This controversial accusation came up during a conversation about the DREAM Act.

In essence, the DREAM Act is a proposal that would allow students whose parents brought them into the United States illegally to gain citizenship with the stipulation that they would enroll in college or join the military, thus allowing them to contribute to the well-being of the country.

Tea Party leaders, such as Rodriguez, would rather not see the act passed and would instead ask that teachers report students who are in the country illegally, so they may be deported.

When asked if this is what the Tea Party members believed, Rodriguez gave an answer in the affirmative. Even before students’ shouts of disapproval had a chance to die down, Bryant said, “You can just say what you are: a practice.” Though Rodriguez certainly does express an interest in controlling immigration policy by circumventing the DREAM Act, the fact is that Rodriguez does not have enough power over its fate to merit the weighty connotation of power drunkenness elicited by the word “Nazi”. Undoubtedly, Bryant employed the word with the goal of stirring emotions against the Tea Party, and in that sense, he was fairly successful. However, the word alone does not make for a substantial argument. It would have been altogether more prudent if Bryant had applied his criticism to the Tea Parties ideologies rather than attacking Rodriguez personally.

The intrusive nature of Rodriguez’s stance on illegal immigration would be an apt place to start. If a teacher were to report the names of illegal students, that teacher would lose the trust not only of the students who are illegal immigrants but also those students’ friends. Students with other problems will be reluctant to come to those teachers for help because they have broken the confidentiality of the student-teacher relationship. This would also take away from the energy spent in actually teaching.

In addition to creating lesson plans, grading papers, attending workshops and staff meetings and any other number of activities required of them, teachers would additionally have to go out of their way to sort out which students can legally learn from them, turning others away from an education and, possibly, the United States. Bringing up points such as these make for a more effective argument than any amount of name-calling could. No matter how effective a trigger word is in stirring up a crowd, it contributes next to nothing to moving the conversation forward.