Although this story is about my experience, I am telling it in the third person because, having been raised Boston Irish Catholic with a heavy religious chapter in my life, the cultural residual guilt gene might have me attempt a false humility that will not serve the story well.
During the District Court trial where evidence was not required to be filtered through the Oklahoma City Public Schools administrators’ attorney before it could be presented to the school board to support the teacher’s dismissal, those who had been so sure that they had done the right thing at the dismissal hearing, had to have begun to realize that they might have voted differently had they been allowed to see all the evidence that could have been presented.
They had to have begun to see that they had been used for certain people’s personal agendas, and that their decision was based on a false premise and the false evidence used to support it.
The school district’s dismissal hearing process had been designed to arrive at an undisputed and predetermined conclusion after which teachers, apparently embarrassed or seeing no hope, went away quietly into the sunset. During a dismissal hearing, teachers could not speak in their own defense, nor could they answer questions, even direct ones, and they were not permitted to clarify any confusion that might arise from material presented or situations described. If they were represented by an attorney or a union representative, only that person could speak, but had to do so without any input from the teacher as the teacher is not allowed to make any comments to or speak with the representative during the hearing. Violations of the procedure would produce an instant loss.
Any evidence that teachers may want to present in their defense had to be first handed over to the administrator’s attorney who then determined which evidence he or she would allow. This decision was by design so it would be unilateral and devoid of a method for appeal.
This way, administrators were free to say whatever they so chose and could present whatever filtered evidence they desired without having to defend either.
The hearing was divided into three parts. The first was where those who recommended a teacher be dismissed would present its charges and its evidence, during which they could not be questioned. The second part was the only time those representing the teacher could speak, present the evidence that the administrators’ attorney had seen fit to allow, and refute any charges made in the first part. The third part was given to the administrators, again, to present any further charges and evidence, but as there was no fourth part, and as no questions from the teacher’s representative were allowed, any further charges and evidence brought up during that time obviously went unchallenged.
Knowing this, toward the end of this particular dismissal hearing one member of the School Board shot a series of rapid fire questions that he knew the teacher was not allowed to answer, and then, because this was a highly publicized case and the media spoke to him after the hearing, claimed the teacher’s not having answered any of his questions was undeniable proof that, having no answers to refute the accusations put forth in the form of those questions, he just had to be guilty as charged.
But, there was more at stake in this situation than just the career of a teacher because in this case, centered as it was on the teacher’s advocacy of GLBT students, a lot more than a job could be lost.
The teacher filed for a Trial de Novo before a District Judge in District Court.
When this case went before a District Judge to prove the dismissal was a wrongful one, and that the vote for dismissal had violated both the law and the district’s own procedures, ignoring as it did that the burden of proof was on the part of the administrators to prove their case and not on the silenced teacher to disprove it, and that a deciding vote was cast by a board member who claimed that as neither side had presented a strong case, she was required to vote for dismissal which was a clear violation of law and procedure, the school administrators and their lawyer did not have any control over the proceedings or of any evidence, testimony, or witnesses for the teacher.
What was introduced to the process in the Trial De Novo was that the administrators’ words were not enough, and that unlike in the cases when teachers just went away quietly because of a Board vote to dismiss, this time administrators had to defend and prove their accusations, and without controlling what evidence could be presented, even their witnesses, assuming they would be merely repeating testimony and giving assessments based on what they had already seen, would have to now deal with what they should have seen before, but were denied, and might be embarrassed by earlier statements
It became obvious that the superintendent’s recommendation for dismissal which was based on false reporting by the administrators under him had been wrong.
As the charges of ineffective teaching, lack of following some superfluous requirements, and lack of knowledge of subject matter rapidly collapsed, it was becoming clear that the basis of the dismissal recommendation had to be something other than the teacher’s performance and adherence to good practice.
It was becoming all too obvious that as he had been making people uncomfortable with his advocacy for GLBT students in the district because of their fears that doing the right thing by the students would affect them politically, and certain administrators having bet on the wrong horses for personal gain, a practice of theirs that was becoming increasingly difficult to sustain and justify, the removal of the messenger and, therefore, the death of the message was in their best self serving interest.
The administration could not justify its action.
The judge ruled in the teacher’s favor.
After the ruling when the teacher should have been simply reinstated to the position he last held and at the school where he held it, the opinion of the administrators was that this would be embarrassing for them. So, claiming it would have been bad for morale, obviously theirs and not that of the faculty or students, they endeavored to avoid doing as the court had ordered, assuming that as they had supreme unquestionable power within the district, they had that same power over the court.
Although the teacher was ordered reinstated by an Oklahoma County district judge, the majority of the board voted to ignore the order choosing, instead, to have the teacher stay home without pay. They based their decision not to reinstate on a claim that they believed the Court order had been only a suggested action, and that, although the law clearly stated that if the teacher had lost and appealed the ruling, the teacher would not receive any salary during the length of the appeal process, they further decided that this law also held that if the district had lost the court case, as it did, and if it filed an appeal, the prohibition of salary was equally applicable.
The district was seeking to continue punishing the teacher in spite of his winning, and controlling his life on an ongoing basis by denying him a living wage.
Clearly, as he had not gone away after the dismissal hearing, as was expected, and the way it usually went, perhaps, making his life miserable could attain that goal as he would have to go somewhere else for employment.
Reappearing before a judge angered that it was ignoring her decision, the district, threatened with the arrest of a Board member a day for contempt of court unless or until they immediately did as the court had directed, bowed to that threat and allowed the teacher back into the classroom.
The district could not accept the loss, first because they simply did not like to lose, and secondly because the contrast between the outcome of the process of dismissing a teacher being so easy with their procedure and the results when they did not have total control over the process could possibly expose how biased, unfair, and unprofessional the dismissal process was and that many teachers who went through it had been dismissed less for their educational ineffectiveness and more because of the personal and political agendas of individual administrators.
The court case cost the tax payers money while the teacher’s representation came through his Union which would be reimbursed court costs and would, therefore, break even.
The teacher offered a simple money saving compromise that would save tax payers any further expenses. As he had prevailed in the case he was under no obligation to offer any compromise, but could, instead, have insisted on a strict adherence to the court ruling and the Union contract, but chose to offer a compromise that would be an inconvenience to him but an advantage to tax payers and students.
Rather than insist he be returned to the position he had held and at the school where he had held it, and have that directed by the court and supported further by Union actions, he offered that he would accept any placement no matter how disadvantageous if the board chose not to appeal the court’s ruling and added the words “sexual orientation” to all applicable policies especially those published in the Student/Parent Handbook.
The board decided that had they accepted the compromise it would have been too much of a win for the teacher, and even if they ignored most of it and did add GLBT student protection for their own benefit, as opposed what was best for the students, doing so too soon after the teacher’s prevailing in the District Court would connect it to his win and their loss, and that would have been bad for their image.
And so, the addition of language was put off indefinitely
The compromise rejected.
An appeal was filed.
Although those on the board with a legal background and training opposed an appeal, the board voted in favor of one. As it would turn out, rather than re-litigate the same case before the appellate court, the school district attempted to present a new case with new charges gathering new evidence for that purpose when they were supposed to present the original case before fresh eyes.
They lost the appeal before it even made it into court.
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While this was going on, The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, also known as the Matthew Shepard Act, was passed on October 22, 2009. The Act expanded the 1969 federal hate crimes law to include sexual orientation.
This obviously could result in any number of students filing charges against the district if they experienced injurious harassment whether that injury were physical or emotional, and, in light of the 12 years of information presented to the board in public meetings in both packets of reports and oral presentations by members of the Oklahoma City community, and news media coverage, along with the advice that “if you do not want to protect these kids for the right reasons, do it for the wrong one, avoiding future litigation, as what is important is the protection, not how it came about”, any blissful ignorance they assumed they could claim as a defense in spite of reality was definitely ripped away with this new law.
Certainly if their defense was that they did not act to protect a student out of innocent ignorance, history could show that they did not act out of crass and willful neglect.
The lawyer on the Board, who was strongest in his support of the teacher’s dismissal and who had spoken so freely to the media about the certainty of his vote, and had been the one with the rapid fire questions, had been called to testify in court, and he based his initial testimony on the controlled evidence presented by the administration only to see at the trial how flawed the process was when he saw the evidence he should have seen originally but was denied it because of the district process. He began to see he had been wrong, and recognized the new law’s impact.
He saw that the inclusive language needed to be added, but that it had to be introduced as if it were coming from the board and no other source.
As if no documents had ever been given to them, and ignoring the multiple times people had spoken in public meetings to the board presenting facts, figures, names of places which had been sued by students and the cost to school districts because of that, this board member explained to the other members of the board, the press, and people in the audience at a public meeting in December 2009 that over the previous weekend he had been aimlessly surfing the web and discovered information about the need to protect GLBT students and the legal reasons to do so.
He began presenting the evidence he had come across, which was actually his going over all the evidence and reports he and the other Board members had been given long before his weekend of discovery.
On December 14, 2009, this Board member, after introducing a motion to add the words “sexual orientation” and ”gender identity” to the district’s policies on bullying, harassment, and nondiscrimination stated,
“This is an opportunity for us to get a little bit ahead of the curve, not very far I’ll admit. You cannot live in central Oklahoma and not admit that there is a tendency to discriminate against Gay and Lesbian individuals. You’d have to have your head in the sand not to admit it.”
Regarding a vote on his motion he further stated,
“I’ll die before I vote no.”
The district’s own on staff legal advisor who had been left out of every step of the dismissal proceedings, the court case, and the discussion on an appeal, and who had supported the inclusive language for most of the 12 year battle added,
“Courts have begun to hold school districts that fail to protect students from discrimination liable for violating constitutional rights”.
Although it was an obvious attempt at feigned innocence and sudden desire to do the right thing, it clearly illustrated that that member of the board and perhaps many others had consistently ignored information beneficial to the students, and not just the GLBT ones who could be harmed, but the naive students who attacked them assuming it was acceptable behavior, but had held these kids as so inconsequential that necessary information about them could be so easily ignored. Needless to say, although I am obviously saying it, his tactic might have impressed the few people who were new to things, but it certainly did not fool the media and most of the people in the auditorium that night, many of whom had come that night thinking they would have to once more speak to the board about inclusive language.
The vote was 5 to 2 with one member voting “no” because she had a fear that the district would end up protecting all students,
“What do we do with other groups that don’t fit into these classifications? Are we going to create a database and continue to expand this policy?”
The other “no” vote was from a board member who ran a “Jesus-friendly” financial firm that marketed itself to Christians, and who had attended a Leadership Conclave for far right extremist groups, patriot pastors, and Constitutionalist lawmakers.
Although it took 12 years, at least half a dozen superintendents (There were 6 in a nine year period which should have indicated a systemic problem), changes in School Board members, a bevy of reprimands, a court case prompted by actions that resulted from some opposition, multiple appearances before the Board by many people, at least one connected death, possibly two, some rather strange behavior on the part of administrators, including at least two Lesbians maneuvering for promotions, and some of the most far fetch arguments in opposition, finally what the Board had been told had sunk in. Even though they now saw they were ahead of the curve, it was a position the Oklahoma City Public Schools District could have been in for many years already.
But it had finally happened.
This is the language that appeared in the Student/Parent Handbook for the 2010-11 academic year:
Page 14: STUDENT RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES: “Every student has the right to conditions favorable to learning. Students have the right to pursue an education free from discrimination based on race, sex, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, marital status, disability, or for any other reason”.
Page 15: BULLYING/ HARASSMENT/ DISCRIMINATION: “Any student or groups of students who have been the victim of sexual harassment or harassment based on race, sex, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, marital status, disability, or for any other reason, will immediately report the incident to the principal”.
“The district does not discriminate on the basis of of race, sex, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, marital status, disability, or for any other reason in providing access to any services, programs, or activities”.
“Additionally, the district does not tolerate harassment based upon on race, sex, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, marital status, disability, or for any other reason”
Page 43: STUDENT CODE OF CONDUCT:
(In the section labeled “Notes” after the columns on Category, Definition, Action Level.)
“Assessment mandatory NOTE: Harassment that is directed toward a student because of that person’s race, sex, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, marital status, or disability is a specific offense of harassment for which heightened disciplinary action is appropriate .”
Eight years later, 2017, when the Oklahoma City Public Schools Board of Education passed a resolution vowing unwavering support for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer students and staff in acknowledgement of June being Pride Month, this inclusivity was reaffirmed by including in the resolution:
“Whereas, it is the policy of the Board that OKCPS shall not discriminate on the bases of race, color, national origin, sex, disability, age religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, alienage, veteran, parental, family, and marital status; and
Whereas, the Board believes that all OKCPS students have the right to participate fully in classroom instruction, and their rights shall not be abridged or impaired because of race, color, national origin, sex, disability, age religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, alienage, veteran, parental, family, and marital status or for any reason not related to individual capability”
This is what the district had opposed up to eight years ago, the opposition to which was supported by many administrators because of personal, religious, and political beliefs, with that opposition being the reason to attempt to rid them of that troublesome teacher.
And one additional piece of information that will illustrate how slowly grind the wheels: the initial request for professional development sessions for teachers about the existence and needs of GLBT students in the Oklahoma City Public Schools district was submitted on March 11, 1997, 12 years before the addition of inclusive language and a full 20 years before this proclamation.
And, lest people say this is all a contrived fiction, I have kept every hard copy and computer generated document, along with 14 years of related emails to and from the principle players.