Former gay porn actor cleared to return to teaching
A former gay porn actor who was fired from his post as a substitute teacher in Florida when the school found out about his past has been cleared for reinstatement.
Shawn Loftis, who appeared in porn under the name Collin O’Neal, had been working at Nautilus Middle School in Miami Beach in 2011 when administrators found out about his porn past and sacked him.
The Education Practices Commission in Florida said last week Loftis, 36, should be free to pursue a teaching certificate, NBC Miami reports.
Loftis told the network the school who fired him when they found out about his work had been on a “crusade” against him but: “Porn is not moral turpitude.”
He said there were not many teachers who could bring a Masters degree in Public Administration and the experiences he had had to the classroom, “forget” the porn past.
In 2011, despite claiming to have left the porn industry the previous year and sold his company World of Men, he was sacked and the Florida Department of Education ruled he should not be able to pursue a certificate for five years.
A spokesman for the school district, whose code of ethics he was supposed to have breached, said the certificate which Loftis is now free to pursue and is already qualified for, did not “guarantee employment” but Loftis said he was hopeful he could secure a position at Miami Beach High.
Of his porn past, he said: “If the kids ever brought it into my class, I would talk to them about how it was not one of my better decisions, and that they have to keep on a right track, that they have to go to college, they have to live within their means.”
