Intercepts
A listening post monitoring public education and teachers’ unions.

I don’t know anything about this incident except what is in this story from the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, but I thought it was an interesting conundrum. Here are the relevant excerpts:

“The president of the local teachers union slammed the School Committee last night for allowing what he described as slanderous comments to be made about a teacher during a public meeting two weeks ago.

“William R. Bourbeau, president of the Fitchburg Education Association, made his remarks at the start of an otherwise upbeat committee meeting, where departing members were saluted and a local physician’s generosity was celebrated.

“Two weeks ago, during the public forum that starts and closes each meeting, the committee heard from a parent who said he was unhappy with the district’s handling of an incident involving his 9-year-old daughter.”

The story then quotes Bourbeau:

“‘If this committee had followed its own policies, it would have discovered that the teacher who was named in the complaint had already been fully investigated and cleared by both the building and district administration,’ Mr. Bourbeau said. ‘Instead, this committee permitted this parent to slander one of its own employees before this committee at its last meeting on Dec. 3.’

“He quoted committee policies regarding complaints about staff that he said were not followed in this case.

“‘Neither policy states that when a complaint has been fully investigated and the teacher has been cleared of all charges that the unhappy parent has the right to present the unfounded allegations at an open meeting of this committee,’ Mr. Bourbeau said. ‘There certainly is no policy that compels the School Committee meeting to be utilized as a tool for harassing the employees of its district.’

“After Mr. Bourbeau’s remarks, committee member James F. Connors said the First Amendment would preclude anyone being muzzled during the open forum. He said the parent in this case did not use any names, so the remarks were not inappropriate.”

There’s a lot of fun stuff to talk about regarding Mr. Bourbeau’s legal theory (which would probably outlaw most O.J. jokes), but doesn’t it seem like he has done almost exactly what he accused the parent of doing?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 18th, 2007 at 12:47 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.