“The 74,” a website founded by former television anchor Campbell Brown, reports that the Partnership for Educational Justice (an anti-Union, anti-tenure, anti-seniority advocacy group founded by Campbell Brown) had their day in court in New York yesterday, and possibly for additional days.
PEJ is seeking to eliminate teacher tenure on grounds that it discriminates against black and brown children and deprives them of their rights. The presumption is that if their teachers did not have tenure, the students would get higher test scores. The lawsuit was filed in 2014. Brown’s organization is bankrolling it (Betsy DeVos was a member of the PEJ board before she became Secretary of Education).
“The lawsuit takes aim at teacher seniority and tenure protections, charging that “last in, first out” rules governing layoffs and other aspects of tenure impinge on students’ constitutional right to a “sound basic education” by keeping “chronically ineffective teachers” in classrooms.
“Among the parent plaintiffs is Tauana Goins, whose daughter’s teacher at P.S. 106 allegedly bullied the girl and called her “a loser.” Goins told The 74 she believes tenure should be based on performance rather than seniority.
“On its website, PEJ contends that New York’s tenure laws amount to lifetime job protections that are so extensive, “schools have to navigate a nearly endless bureaucratic maze to replace even the worst-performing teachers.””
PEJ has pursued the same claim in Minnesota and New Jersey, thus far without success.
“In the New Jersey lawsuit, HG v. Harrington, six plaintiff parents argue that “last in, first out” rules prevent children in low-income school districts from receiving a “thorough and efficient education.” In May, New Jersey Superior Court Judge Mary Jacobson threw out the case, contending the plaintiffs had failed to show how their children were harmed by the rules.
“I don’t see any link other than speculation and conjecture between the LIFO statute and the denial of a thorough and efficient education to these 12 children,” Jacobson said at the time.
The parents have since appealed that decision.”
PEJ is appealing.
Here is a curious twist in the story.
Campbell Brown originally became involved in the fight against unions and teacher tenure because she was convinced that they protected sexual predators in the classrooms of New York City. In 2012 and 2014, she wrote articles in Rupert Murdoch’s anti-public school Wall Street Journal about sexual predators in public schools.
The celebrated attorney David Boies agreed to lead the fight on behalf of PEJ because he agreed that tenure was harming the civil rights of minority children. Leave aside the fact that somewhere between 40-50% of beginning teachers don’t remain in teaching because of the demands of the job. The turnover is highest in poorest communities, where children need a stable and experienced corps of committed teachers. Removing tenure would likely increase teacher turnover, especially where the needs are greatest.
But here is the irony, given Campbell’s concern about sexual predators. In addition to representing PEJ, Boies also represented the celebrated sexual predator Harvey Weinstein.
According to reporting in the New York Times and The New Yorker, Boies hired a private investigator to protect Weinstein.
An article in the Times by Deborah Rhodes on November 9 said that Boies’ role in protecting Weinstein was “egregious.”
“The stories of sexual abuse swirling around the movie producer Harvey Weinstein offer so much not to like that it is hard to imagine much more to say about men behaving badly. But it turns out there is more. One of the nation’s most respected lawyers, David Boies, is among those whose work helped Mr. Weinstein try to conceal his abusive behavior.
“Mr. Boies personally signed a contract with a private investigation organization, Black Cube, to unearth, as the contract specified, “intelligence which will help the client’s efforts to completely stop the publication of a new negative article in a leading NY Newspaper.” The client was Mr. Weinstein. The contract also authorized investigators to look for material to discredit “harmful negative information” about Mr. Weinstein in a forthcoming book. Having Mr. Boies rather than Mr. Weinstein sign the contract had the advantage of protecting the resulting information under the attorney-client privilege, which would shield it from disclosure in subsequent disputes.
“What makes the involvement of Mr. Boies so egregious is not only that it helped Mr. Weinstein conceal his abuse and undermined the First Amendment interests of the press and the public. It is also that Mr. Boies’s representation posed a conflict of interest, because his firm, Boies Schiller Flexner, was representing The New York Times, the “leading NY Newspaper,” in libel litigation at the same time.”
(I can’t supply a link to the article because The NY Times website is not allowing me to copy the link. Google it. And google the New Yorker articles by Ronan Farrow about Boies and Weinstein.)
I guess people have different thresholds of tolerance when it comes to allegations about “sexual predators.” My understanding is that the United federation of Teachers has a zero tolerance policy for teachers who are sexual predators. But some process of review is necessary so that teachers’ careers are not destroyed by false accusations.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
Campbell Brown really needs to get a life. She is constantly meddling in things that she has no business or knowledge.
Here’s that link to the New York Times opinion piece:
Very true.
The attorney who said that sexual predators are being protected by teacher tenure is the same attorney who protects sexual predators.
Here is what people like Campbell Brown and Eva Moskowitz’ billionaire supporter Paul Tudor Jones believe:
Having due process protection for teachers being accused of sexual crimes is an evil thing. When a teacher is accused of being a sexual predator they should just be fired without any due process or investigation.
However, powerful men who are accused of being sexual predators should be enabled and allowed to keep preying on women by their corporate board. As big Eva Moskowitz’ supporter Paul Tudor Jones says. In fact, if you are really a charter supporter like Paul Tudor Jones, you appoint the sexual predator to the board of your children’s charity, the Robin Hood foundation, where he can have good access to children.
And people like Eva Moskowitz and Campbell Brown praise you!
At least the corrupt charter school supporters like Paul Tudor Brown are consistent. Neither the victims of Harvey Weinstein nor the teachers accused of sexual improprieties should have due process. There is no need to investigate or have due process when the billionaires like Paul Tudor Jones should be able to decide which sexual predators should be put on children’s charity boards and which should be fired.
These are some lovely, highly principled people….
Did you mean “highly principaled people”
““Among the parent plaintiffs is Tauana Goins, whose daughter’s teacher at P.S. 106 allegedly bullied the girl and called her “a loser.” Goins told The 74 she believes tenure should be based on performance rather than seniority.”
First, was Ms. Goins’ daughter’s teacher even tenured? IIRC, some of the teachers accused in the Vergara case weren’t. Second, even if s/he was tenured, that does not prohibit termination for cause. If said teacher did indeed call her daughter a “loser”, that would be grounds for termination, tenured or not. If this teacher was not terminated, either (i) the offense didn’t occur, (ii) it occurred, but couldn’t be properly documented or (iii) this school has lousy administration. Eliminating tenure isn’t going to change whether or not the offense actually occurred, it’s not going to make documentation any easier/better, and it’s not going to improve lousy administration.
In the Vergara case, one of the teachers being attacked by a plaintiff and her mom turned out to be one of the best teachers in the school system. She was ruined by their mudslinging.
The interesting thing is that when you DON’T have a tenure system and due process, whether or not that teacher who called the girl a “loser” was fired would depend entirely on how much the principal liked her or not. If she likes her, she is allowed to do more than just call her a loser.
Without tenure and due process, not only will Ms. Goin’s daughter’s teacher be able to call her a “loser”, but she can actually mete out punishment to her daughter for not answering a question properly. Her teacher can tell the principal to put her daughter on a got to go list.
And she will STILL have her job!
Salient points, both of you. Without tenure, a teacher would indeed have a motivation to belittle a student as a ruse for driving that student out of the class. Dependence on “performance” of students as an evaluation of the teacher has already had the effect of exaggerating the tendency of teachers to manipulate the system so that they do not teach in difficult situations.
For all of my career, there have been instructors whose method was to lay down a baseline for behavior over which the students could not cross. Students who did not measure up went to other teachers, usually because the no nonsense approach produced classes of people who were quiet and worked hard. Discussions about this approach usually produced those teachers asserting that their my way or the highway approach should be implemented broadly, and students who are not learning should be removed from school and pitched out on the street. These are the teachers who might generally be expected to have very good scores because the children are not stupid. They would steer clear of these teachers.
Whether this is bad or good is not the point here. The point is that performanced-based retention of teachers would exacerbate the above tendency, meaning that students who do not do well on tests will always be taught by teachers who have little or no experience, for they will continue to leave in frustration, much the same way they do now.
Love the irony! Great catch!
Two tricks for accessing articles behind a paywall (which often also won’t let you copy the words displaying the name of the article): In Google, type in the title of the article (or the first few words of it). If the article is in a periodical that Google has an agreement with, you can access the article directly from their search results. If the periodical does not have that agreement with Google, then click on the little down arrow that is in the top right section of the search results at the end of the URL provided. Then you can read the article in cache.
Thanks for the tip.
How are charter teachers evaluated?
Isn’t this an instance where there are records regarding public school teacher performance and NO records regarding charter school teacher performance?
In other words, ed reformers can track public school teachers because labor unions keep records of due process. They can’t track charter school teachers.
They have no earthly idea how many “ineffective” charter teachers there currently are, nor do they know how many have been reprimanded or found wanting at charter schools because the teachers aren’t in a union so there’s no system-wide records available.
They’re seizing on public school teacher records, but the only reason they can do that is because the data is collected and exists. They’re comparing information they have on public school teachers to NO information on charter teachers.
That’s a completely invalid comparison.
You saw this in Chicago. There was a newspaper piece about how Chicago charters were hiring teachers who had been put on a “do not hire list” by Chicago Public Schools.
The only entity with a “do not hire list” is Chicago Public schools. Chicago charters don’t collect system records.
So one HAS information on CPS teachers (that’s how we knew the charters had hired those teachers) but there’s NO comparable system-wide records for charters.
To compare union v non-union you would need real system-wide data on non-union teachers. As it is now we have only the unionized teacher side of the comparison.
Non-union teachers could be worse than teachers with tenure, or better. We don’t know. We don’t have comparable information on non-union teachers.
It’s not even an apples to oranges comparison. It’s an apples to nothing comparison.
The problem with CPS’ do not hire list is that if the teacher was probationary, no investigation of the charge needed to be done. If an administrator took a dislike to a teacher, they could ruin his/her career by putting his/her on that list. Non-tenured teachers have no union protection. It takes four years to get tenure/due process protection.
So here’s how this ends up.
Ed reformers eradicate school systems and they eradicate unions. Mission accomplished.
Each school is now a separate entity with no system-wide collection of information on teachers, no disciplinary or due process records- those will be held individually by each charter or private school or “authorizer” or whatever- so there won’t be any way to tell unless they go to each charter and find some way to get manager’s records.
Now they know much less about the teacher work force than they do now. I mean, I guess you can say they “improved” the teacher force but what will really have happened is they won’t know because no one will be collecting it.
It’ll be like “the fast food workforce” or “the home health care workforce”. There won’t be any available data at all. The whole reason we know all this about teachers is because they’re public employees who belong to unions. We don’t collect “quality” or “sanctions” data on private sector employees.
I suspect this will not stop until they have filed in every state. And even then it might not stop. Everytime they fail, they will think up another allegation to file again.
I posted about this elsewhere, and am moving over those posts:
There’s a story that connects the Harvey Weinstein debacle to the corporate ed. reform industry that no one has yet picked up on. I thought you might be interested, or at least let me post about it.
Here goes:
When it comes to hypocrisies, check out this latest.
First, some background …
In the last few years, Campbell Brown has made countless joint appearances with David Boies, the Chairman of her union-busting Parents for Educational Justice (PEJ) organization, and also as the lead attorney in the original Vergara lawsuit, and the copycat Vergara lawsuits that PEJ exported to other states, including the one in New York City.
Here’s one of those joint appearance:
( 1:58 – )
( 1:58 – )
CAMPBELL BROWN: “You read this story in the newspaper about a teacher who engaged in sexual misconduct, and they still aren’t able to remove that teacher (because of evil teacher unions, JACK) … ”
Every chance she gets, Campbell and Boies call out teachers unions for “going to bat for” and protecting sexual predator teachers. For example, here she is in the Wall Street Journal once again positioning herself, Boies, and PEJ as the protectors / avengers of children sexual abused by teachers.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10000872396390443437504577547313612049308
The claims and statistics she used to make this predator-teachers-are-running-rampant argument were, at the time, immediately debunked, but that’s another story.
Truth, however, was not the point. She and her allies were and are trying to get people to react emotionally — who doesn’t despise child molestors? — and consequently turn against teacher unions. Appealing to the emotions and to fear is is a classic propaganda technique. Trumped used it to get elected. The Nazis did this with Jews with movies like Veit Harlan’s JEW SUSS, which portrays them as slobbering rapists out to defile innocent German women.
The title and top note of Campbell’s WSJ article are :
“Campbell Brown: Teachers Unions Go to Bat for Sexual Predators
“The system to review misconduct is rigged so even abusive teachers can stay on the job.”
Keep all this in mind when you ponder this latest. You’re not gonna believe this.
According to Ronan Farrow’s NEW YORKER article released a couple days ago …
.. David Boies, again the SAME lead attorney in California’s Vergara’s farce, and the Chariman of Brown’s Partner’s for Educational Justice, which is exporting Vergara copy-cat lawsuits to other states. and whose mug was everywhere during all phases of that failed let-‘s-bust-unions by-destroying-their-tenure Vergara lawsuit, and also during all those joint appearances with Campbell when new such lawsuits were being filed in other states …
… this is just too incredible …
… for years, Boes engineered a massive and insidious covert network of spooks and private investigators — including ex-agents from Israel’s Mossad secret police (???!!!) — to spy on, then attack Harvey Weinstein’s victims who, in spite of Boies’ pressure, were FINALLY starting to speak out during the last year leading up to the media firestorm that began in September. It was an obviously failed effort, as we all know now, to intimidate those victims into silence.
For years, Boies’ group was doing the same thing to any journalists that were thinking of reporting on Weinstein’s predation.
Hmmm …
Who’s “going to bat for sexual predators?”
Who’s being paid “to keep abusive” people “on the job?”
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/harvey-weinsteins-army-of-spies
NEW YORKER’s Ronan Farrow:
“In some cases, the investigative effort was run through Weinstein’s lawyers, including David Boies, a celebrated attorney who represented Al Gore in the 2000 Presidential-election dispute and argued for marriage equality before the U.S. Supreme Court. Boies personally signed the contract directing Black Cube to attempt to uncover information that would stop the publication of a Times story about Weinstein’s abuses, while his firm was also representing the Times, including in a libel case.
“Boies confirmed that his firm contracted with and paid two of the agencies and that investigators from one of them sent him reports, which were then passed on to Weinstein. He said that he did not select the firms or direct the investigators’ work. He also denied that the work regarding the Times story represented a conflict of interest. Boies said that his firm’s involvement with the investigators was a mistake. ‘We should not have been contracting with and paying investigators that we did not select and direct,’ he told me.
“ ‘At the time, it seemed a reasonable accommodation for a client, but it was not thought through, and that was my mistake. It was a mistake at the time.’
“Techniques like the ones used by the agencies on Weinstein’s behalf are almost always kept secret, and, because such relationships are often run through law firms, the investigations are theoretically protected by attorney-client privilege, which could prevent them from being disclosed in court. The documents and sources reveal the tools and tactics available to powerful individuals to suppress negative stories and, in some cases, forestall criminal investigations.”
This is truly stupefying news.
What an absolutely monumental piece-of-sh– Boies is!
Another aspect of this is that the New York Times fired Boies and his firm once Farrow’s piece hit the press.
Think about that for a second:
… for years, Boies had been hired by — and getting extremely well-paid by (millions) — the NY Times to defend it against various and totally separate libel lawsuits …. while, at the same time, Boies was deliberately hiding the fact that his firm, (including ex-Mossad ageints) — was covertly intimidating reporters — including New York Times staffers and writers — into dropping the story. This is in addition to his campaign to pressure Weinstein victims into not speaking out, not just to the NEW YORKER’s Ronan Farrow, but also to the NY Times reporters who did a story covering the same ground.
Chew on that for a second: Boies is terrorizing New York Time reporters into not covering and dropping the Weinstein story … while being paid by the NY Times to provide legal services for the Times in separate libel suits being brought against the Times. (sorry about being repetitive)
Well, the NY Times found out and immediately fired Boies and his firm, and blasting him for his “betrayal” and “reprehensible” work for Weinstein.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/new-york-times-fires-law-firm-david-boies-harvey-weinstein_us_5a02711ee4b04e96f0c64720
HUFFINGTON POST:
“The New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow reported Monday that lawyer David Boies, working on behalf of Weinstein, contracted with a team of private investigators, including former Mossad agents, to try to kill a negative New York Times story about Weinstein. Boies firm, Boies Schiller Flexner, has represented the newspaper three times in the last 10 years. The firm was reportedly defending the Times in a libel suit at the same time it was hiring private investigators to target its journalists.
“ ‘We never contemplated that the law firm would contract with an intelligence firm to conduct a secret spying operation aimed at our reporting and our reporters,’ the Times said in a statement obtained by Politico’s Michael Calderone.
“ ‘Such an operation is reprehensible … we should have been treated better by a firm that we trusted,’ the statement continued.”
Here’s SLATE’s coverage of this, where they report that the New York Times is going to sue Boies and his firm, and also seek Boies’ disbarment (presumably that’s what “pursuing appropriate remedies” refers to) :
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/11/david_boies_abetting_of_harvey_weinstein_was_shameful_and_unethical.html
SLATE: “Luban also noted that Boies’ sanctioning of intelligence work on behalf of Weinstein could be ethically questionable under Rule 5.3, which prohibits lawyers from directing or approving a nonlawyer’s “specific conduct” that they themselves could not undertake without getting disbarred.
” … ”
“Legal ethics expert and Georgetown Law professor David Luban told us in an email that, at minimum, Boies could have run afoul of Rule 1.7 of New York’s rules of professional conduct, which bars lawyers from representing a client ‘if a reasonable lawyer would conclude that … the representation will involve the lawyer in representing different interests.’ There are exceptions, but they require informed consent from both clients, which Boies did not provide to the Times.
“ ‘We learned today that the law firm of Boies Schiller and Flexner secretly worked to stop our reporting on Harvey Weinstein at the same time as the firm’s lawyers were representing us in other matters,’ the newspaper said in a statement.
“ ‘We consider this intolerable conduct, a grave betrayal of trust, and a breach of the basic professional standards that all lawyers are required to observe. It is inexcusable and we will be pursuing appropriate remedies.’ ”
Here’s one more little irony about the CBS joint appearance of Boies and Brown.
Brown and Harvey-protector Boies are blathering away about teacher unions “going to bat for” and “protecting sexual predator teachers”, while the sympathetic interviewer nodding and assenting to Brown and Boies’ anti-union smear campaign is none other than ….
… Charlie Rose!!!!!!
For a great 2-minute primer on Charlie Rose’s insane hypocrisy, watch this video about his interviews attacking sexual harassers while during and before these bits, he was one himself:
http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2017/11/22/charlie-rose-sexual-harassment-tv-spots.cnnmoney/index.html
One more thing … tying in Boies to TFA.
My favorite part of Brown & Boies’ Morning Joe segment is when Boies — who’s supposedly all about attracting high quality teachers — sings the praises of schools hiring untrained Teacher for America Corps Members who’ve never set foot in to a classroom (???!!!) :
Why, Boies says that he even has TFA CM’s over at his house for weekend barbecue picnics!!!
Hear him tell THAT story.
( 5:21 – )
( 5:21 – )
DAVID BOIES: “Every summer, we have Teach for America for a picnic, and they’re just great! They’re enthusiastic, and yet some people want to keep Teach for America out of New York City Schools. It doesn’t make any sense if what you want volunteers to do- ”
MORNING JOE: “Why do they want to keep them out?”
(Oh gee … I don’t know. Maybe it’s because they’ve never taught a day in their lives, are totally untrained, and that 90% quit within two or three years, JACK)
DAVID BOIES: “Because they (veteran unionized teachers) view them as competition for people who are already teaching there. I think that maybe they’re disruptive in the sense that they have new ideas and enthusiasm, and that’s what teaching is about!”
Yeah, right, David. Veteran teachers are jealous of and intimidated by TFA’s “new ides and enthusiasm” and the resulting “competition.”
Here’s a better link to the MORNING JOE:
Watching Boies recount how TFA CM’s are chillin’ and hangin’ with Boies at one of his backyard barbecues conjures up an image:
Boies is wearing an apron, and a chef’s hat while flipping steaks and lobsters at on one of those weekend barbecues in his backyard — where he’s again entertaining TFA teachers — acting friendly to the visiting TFA CM’s at one turn.
BOIES: (quiet, genial .. to TFA teachers) “Hey Seth and Caitlin. It’s ‘surf-‘n-turf’ time. How’d you like your filet mignons and lobsters done? … You know I really love your Ivy League enthusiasm and new ideas that you guys bring to education. It’s just too bad those evil teachers union members can’t handle the competition you TFA youngsters are bringing to reforming our schools.
“Also, it’s too bad that teacher unions are protecting sexual predator teachers, and attacking anyone trying to get them out of the classroom.”
… then enraged at another turn, as he’s repeatedly interrupted on his cellphone by ex-Mossad spooks who are giving him the latest Harvey victim intel and/or asking for Boies’ instructions on how to obliterate or intimidate the latest complaining Hollywood actress who has spilt the beans on Harvey, or is about to spill the beans on Harvey:
BOIES: (screaming into his cell phone) “I need DIRT!!! Ya hear me?! Dirt!! Drug use! Abortions! Nude photos! Sex tapes from vindictive ex-boyfriends! Whatever you can dig up! And then use it to nail that b—h and shut her the-f–k-up! She’s gonna find that getting raped on Harvey’s casting couch is nothing compared to what WE are gonna do to her! And tell those New York Times reporters we’re going to cut of their heads and bury ’em in Central Park if they don’t lay off Harvey!!! YOU GOT IT??!!”
Okay, that’s just a parody, and a little extreme, but you get my point.
I like the reverse statement better. Why should teachers lose tenure just because Campbell Brown is a corporate shill on a campaign to strip due process rights from them?
Public school teacher Nancy Bailey does a superb job of deconstructing the above Boies and Brown’s MORNING JOE on her blog:
http://nancyebailey.com/2014/08/04/prestigious-dyslexic-lawyer-david-boies-now-supports-campbell-browns-attacks-on-teacher-tenure/
NANCY BAILEY:
“Mr. Boies brags about having Teach for America to his place for a picnic! I can’t help but wonder how he would like young recruits with a couple of weeks of training taking over his job at his fancy law firm. How about Lawyers for America? Or would he have liked it if his parents had lost their jobs due to Teach for America?
“But mostly, having been a special education teacher, I have to wonder how many students with dyslexia (Bailey earlier goes into detail about Boies having dyslexia, which he overcame with the help of Special Ed. public school teachers.) are going to learn how to read with a Teach for America recruit. Boies, of all people, should realize how much preparation it takes to understand the dynamics of teaching reading, especially corrective reading. Real professional teachers need more not less preparation. Does he think enthusiasm is all you need?
“And instead of picnicking with Teach for America, maybe he should be doing some real research. While some like to dispute this, both he and Brown should at least learn that, for the most part, the states with the highest test scores have always been the states where the teachers’ unions are strongest and the teachers have tenure. Actually, it has always been sort of a given. No offense to my southern friends. I did not make this up. This is what I’ve been told.
“No. Boies has friends in high places is my guess. And none of them, I repeat none of them, are friends to teachers or the students those teachers try so hard to nurture and protect. While there are some teachers, like there are individuals in any profession who are less than ideal, these people paint all teachers with one broad stroke. They have a larger agenda in mind.
“For me, a rather creepy part of the Morning Joe program was at the very end when they were all chuckling in reference to the negative tweets Campbell Brown got before going on The Colbert Report. She calls all of us “haters.” I guess they think anyone who disagrees with them is a hater…which, according to the huge number of people who tweeted, is a lot of people.”
ReplyDelete
Jack CoveyNovember 19, 2017 at 8:29 PM
Peter,
Here’s an update on Boise, with two more Boies-related articles.
The first is about multiple conflict of interest disclosures (or rather, failures to disclose):
While negotiating Weinstein’s contract with the board of The Weinstein Company — Boies was required to disclose any investments he had in any Weinstein Company films produced by Harvey Weinstein.
Apparently, Boies has $20 million of personal assets to throw away on investments in Harvey’s movies … money accrued, at least in part, from his paid work on the various Vergara lawsuits, and his Chairmanship of the Parents for Educational Justice, created by Campbell Brown.
Boies also concealed all that damning information from Harvey Weinstein’s personnel file — including much of the nasty stuff that we now know brought Weinstein down — which enabled Weinstein to remain longer at the Weinstein Company than he otherwise would have.
A la Nixon’s failed Stennis compromise …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stennis_Compromise
… Boies got the Weinstein Company Board and its attorneys to agree to let a third party of Boies’ choosing review Harvey’s execrable personalle file, write a report, then submit that report to the Board … and that would constitute the Board’s “review” of Harvey’s file. Naturally, Harvey came up clean as a whistle in the final review that was submitted to the board.
And we all now know how accurate THAT turned out to be.
All of Boies’ sleaziness has infuriated the Weinstein Company Board — which immediately and unanimously fired Weinstein when the scandal broke: (The Board’s unanimous vote also includes Harvey’s brother Bob … this is Biblical, it appears)
http://deadline.com/2017/11/harvey-weinstein-david-boies-board-members-weinstein-co-1202207871/
DEADLINE HOLLYWOOD:
“The directors say that had they known of Boies’ personal stake in the films, “We would have immediately said to David Boies, ‘You can’t negotiate Harvey’s contract,’ …
“They also contend that Boies denied them access to key documents in Weinstein’s personnel file during an inquiry in late 2014 and early 2015.
”Rather than give direct access, Boies pushed to have a third party, Rodgin Cohen of law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, review the personnel file and write a report to the board, the Journal reported. The directors agreed to the review reluctantly after failing to obtain the file themselves, the people familiar with the matter told the Journal. Cohen’s report found ‘no unresolved claims that could result in liability to TWC or its directors’ and ‘no pending or threatened litigation.’ ”
The other article is about how Boies’ other big money clients are dumping him in utter disgust at what’s been revealed in Ronan Farrow’s report and elsewhere:
https://abovethelaw.com/2017/11/david-boies-loses-more-work-over-weinstein-debacle/
ABOVE THE LAW:
“Now the city of St. Petersburg, Florida, has also ended a potential relationship with Boies.
“Boies had been lined up to represent the city pro bono in a case to challenge the campaign finance rules under Citizens United. But, according to the Tampa Bay Times, Boies’s involvement with Weinstein soured the city on the idea:
“Those revelations [in the New Yorker piece] caught the attention of [St. Petersburg council member, Steve Kornell], who wrote Monday on Facebook that Boies’ involvement in the Weinstein scandal means he would vote against any offer from the lawyer to defend the city’s Super PAC ordinance.
KORNELL: “I find this reprehensible and will absolutely NOT vote to accept Boies’ offer to represent the city of St. Petersburg pro bono on the campaign finance issue.”
There’s more mind-blowing David Boies stuff to share.
Boies personally negotiated Harvey Weinstein’s 2015 contract with The Weinstein Company (TWC), and you’re not going to believe this, but Boise — the same self-righteous protector/avenger of countless children he claims are bing abused by teachers, the guy who is the Chairman of the Partners for Educational Justice’s campaign to root out sexual predator teachers whom Boies claims are protected by evil teachers unions, and whose firm does all PEJ’s legal work to the effect — crafted and included language in WEINSTEIN’s CONTRACT WITH TWC …
… you’re not going to believe this ….
… ALLOWED FOR and FULLY EXPECTED WEINSTEIN TO CONTINUE SEXUALLY HARASSING AND SEXUALLY ASSAULTING WOMEN — both in the future, and in the past. Indeed, Boies negotiated Harvey’s contract so that such behavior on Weinstein’s part, per the contract, could never result in the possible consequence of Weinstein being fired.
Again, Boies, Weinstein, and his employers and The Weinstein Company all assumed, as a given, that Harvey has in the past, and will, in the future, engage in sexual harassment and assaults, but that behavior — or lawsuits arising from that behavior — could never be grounds for the Board at The Weinstein Company (TWC) to fire Harvey.
For Boies even to ask for such contract language takes real chutzpah, but he did, and, incredibly, he got it.
According to this abomination of an employment contract negotiated by Boies, if and when Weinstein was sued by a victim of sexual harassment or sexual assault at Weinstein’s hands, Weinstein would have to merely pay “a fine” to his employer, TWC, then continue working for the company.
Call it David Boies’ “License to Rape” clause in Weinstein’s contract.
Indeed, Boies anticipated that there would be multiple such lawsuits brought by victims, and thus, instituted “an escalating scale of fines” that Weinstein would pay … again, in lieu of getting fired. “$500,000 for the first time, $750,000 for the second,” and on and on.
As TMZ put it, “The contract says as long as Weinstein pays, it constitutes a ‘cure’ for the misconduct and no further action can be taken. TRANSLATION — Weinstein could be sued over and over and as long as he wrote a check, he keeps his job.”
http://www.tmz.com/2017/10/12/weinstein-contract-the-weinstein-company-sexual-harassment-firing-illegal/
TMZ:
“TMZ is privy to Weinstein’s 2015 employment contract, which says if he gets sued for sexual harassment or any other ‘misconduct’ that results in a settlement or judgment against TWC, all Weinstein has to do is pay what the company’s out, along with a fine, and he’s in the clear.
“According to the contract, if Weinstein ‘treated someone improperly in violation of the company’s Code of Conduct,’ he must reimburse TWC for settlements or judgments.
” ‘Additionally, You [Weinstein] will pay the company liquidated damages of $250,000 for the first such instance, $500,000 for the second such instance, $750,000 for the third such instance, and $1,000,000 for each additional instance.’
“The contract says as long as Weinstein pays, it constitutes a ‘cure’ for the misconduct and no further action can be taken. TRANSLATION — Weinstein could be sued over and over and as long as he wrote a check, he keeps his job.
“The contract has specific language as to when the Board of Directors can fire Weinstein — if he’s indicted or convicted of a crime, but that doesn’t apply here.”
It isn’t just David Boies.
Paul Tudor Jones sat on the board of the Weinstein Company. He and the board had to approve every huge hush payment to cover-up Harvey’s crimes, not to mention he and the board had to approve these payments to the law firm hired to get dirt on any reporter who might report it.
And what does this pro-charter supporter who sat on the Weinstein board and had inside knowledge of what was going on do?
He makes sure Harvey is sitting on HIS children’s charity board. Because after witnessing all this first hand, why wouldn’t a pro-charter billionaire want Harvey Weinstein on his children’s charity board.
It shows you exactly what pro-charter billionaires think about kids. They are props to prove you are charitable while you buy politicians to make sure you rob from the poor and middle class to give to the rich.
Was there ever any questions as to the motive of Brown and Singer when she started this campaign . But now Bannon is going after Singer there is a God . Maybe they can duel it out with a tie. . The tax bill is aimed at making this a mute point . Non Union Teachers do not have Tenure. What do you think the end game of removing or limiting local tax deductions was. Go Mueller go . Time to vomit again.
In my experience, if a teacher behaves with any sort of impropriety with a student, even without sexual contact, they are immediately fired and have their teaching license revoked. While the district might put them on paid leave for a short period of time, the state acts swiftly. At least this is true in New York State. However, private schools have just as many sexual predators (if not more) without some of the protections put in place by the public schools. Just recently, a “predictor” was discovered on the staff of a parochial school in an affluent suburb near Buffalo
I don’t see how any of this has anything remotely connected with tenure.