Mindi Jensen is a middle school teacher in Utah. She’s also a bodybuilder who posts pictures of her workouts and competitions on Instagram. And she doesn’t post them under her real name, either. Why? Because she didn’t want photos of her posing or modeling bikinis (she does that, too) to be seen by students. But it’s 2015 and anything you post on the internet will eventually be discovered, so no one was particularly surprised when intrepid students found Jensen’s Instagram. What was surprising, however, is that her school district didn’t initially protect her. According to FOX 4, when her pictures came to their attention, school officials asked her to make them private, take them down, or lose her job. None of these are particularly appetizing choices, especially considering that there’s nothing at all suggestive about Jensen’s photos. But that didn’t stop parents from complaining:
“These kids found it and the parents were appalled by the pictures they called it immodest. They called it pornographic. They called the pictures inappropriate and these are my fitness and show pictures in my sport, in my uniform in my bodybuilding sport,” said Jensen.
The teacher told FOX 4 that she’d started bodybuilding and modeling when she became depressed. The mother of four lost so much weight during that time that she knew she had to begin focusing on making herself healthier again. And what better way to do that than to work out and participate in competitive sports? Jensen even inspired people!
“I thought with my body being stronger maybe it would soak into my emotions, my heart and my brain and strengthen that so I started fitness,” said Jensen. “I get women, single woman, single mommas that message me, even on Instagram they will message me and tell me that what they read and what they see that I’m doing has inspired them to be healthier, has inspired them to leave a bad situation, to build strength.”
Really nothing more salacious than you’d see at a public pool. But you know how parents can be. If teachers aren’t assigning too much homework, they’re not assigning enough. And if the woman entrusted with teaching their middle-schoolers walks around in a bathing suit when she’s not at work, better get her fired.
Fortunately for Jensen, once the media got ahold of her story the school and the district backed down, apologizing for any “misunderstandings” and letting her know that they’ll train parents on how to monitor their kids’ internet usage instead of firing an otherwise competent teacher because she does stuff outside of school. Which sounds like what they should have done in the first place? (Via Fox 4)
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