Troy Schoeller’s mistake was to speak too frankly — and too pungently — about his work as an embalmer and funeral director, but doing so never should have brought the wrath of a state licensing board upon him. Fortunately for the cause of free speech, the state’s highest court recently overturned that board’s decision.
In a 2006 article in the Boston Phoenix, Schoeller was quoted in gory detail about the mechanics of embalming obese people, and about a difficult reconstruction involving an infant whom he never named. Perhaps not surprisingly, Schoeller’s employer, a chapel, was displeased with his comments and fired him. But the chapel also filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Board of Registration of Funeral Directors and Embalmers, which voted unanimously to revoke Schoeller’s professional licenses. The board, most of whose members work in the funeral industry, took issue with the language he used and accused him of undermining the integrity of the profession.
Comments
The state's regulatory boards should be completely independent -- no funeral directors regulating funeral directors, no hairdressers regulating hairdressers, no doctors regulating doctors, no pharmacists regulating pharmacists, etc.
I know the old argument is that the boards have to have knowledge of the professions they regulate. I disagree. Each board needs the abilitiy to hired that expertise if it's needed in a particular case, but in most cases a board of consumers will know what's right and what's not.