New info emerges in ouster of KIPP co-founder
Charter officials offer findings of inquiry in filing to dismiss suit
The firing of KIPP charter school co-founder Mike Feinberg last year followed accusations that he inappropriately touched a 12year-old girl under the guise of a medical exam, offered money in exchange for sex to an 18-year-old former student and accessed pornography on his work-issued computer at least 30 times, according to a new filing in Feinberg’s defamation lawsuit against the organization.
In a motion filed last month to dismiss the defamation suit, KIPP officials provided the most details to date about the stunning ouster of Feinberg, who helped start the charter network in Houston and build it into a national powerhouse in the school choice movement. The new information includes the age of the two accusers, corroborating statements from two people told about the allegations of inappropriate touching and the existence of audio recordings made to bolster the 18-yearold former student’s claims.
Feinberg has denied doing anything sexually improper with KIPP students or alumni, and he has argued KIPP officials did not allow him the opportunity to adequately respond to the allegations. He filed a defamation suit against KIPP in August, seeking
more than $1 million and access to additional documents related to his firing.
Chalkbeat, a national education news nonprofit, first reported the new KIPP filing on Wednesday.
When KIPP officials announced Feinberg’s termination in February 2018, they did not release full investigative findings and withheld several key details about the allegations from the public. KIPP officials repeatedly have said they cannot definitively prove whether the allegations involving inappropriate conduct with former students are true. However, investigators hired by KIPP said the two accusers were more credible than Feinberg, who was interviewed twice as part of the inquiry.
“These decisions were not undertaken lightly,” lawyers for KIPP wrote in their motion to dismiss. “Feinberg was one of KIPP’s original co-founders, the face of the organizations, a veritable celebrity in the charter-school and education-policy worlds, and a close, personal friend to many of the board members involved. This is precisely why the KIPP boards engaged a third-party law firm with relevant expertise to conduct an independent investigation.”
Lawyers representing Feinberg did not respond to requests for comment Thursday. In a statement to Chalkbeat, one of Feinberg’s lawyers, Mano DeAyala, said KIPP has “repeatedly threatened Mike with further damage to his reputation in an effort to prevent him from filing his lawsuit,” adding that the motion to dismiss is “just another attempt to achieve that goal.”
In their 43-page motion, KIPP’s lawyers outline many new facets of the investigation conducted by the international law firm WilmerHale. They also argue KIPP officials’ carefully crafted public statements about Feinberg’s firing have been truthful.
KIPP attorneys wrote that the investigation started when a senior student objected to Feinberg giving a speech to her graduating class, stating that Feinberg had sexually assaulted her cousin, a former KIPP student.
KIPP’s outside counsel, Ellen Spalding, initially interviewed the former student, who said she was 12 years old in the late 1990s when Feinberg twice took her into his office and touched her inappropriately “under the guise of a ‘medical examination,’” according to the motion.
Spalding found the former student credible, but she could not find any corroborating evidence and did not interview any of the former student’s family members or friends, KIPP lawyers wrote.
The charter network’s leaders hired WilmerHale to conduct a deeper investigation after seeing an online comment posted under a news article about a KIPP employee’s firing. The unnamed author wrote, “smh [shaking my head], if only they knew there’s more from the past,” according to the motion.
WilmerHale officials re-interviewed the former student, who provided the same account to investigators and accurately described the office where she alleged the assaults occurred. The law firm’s investigators also spoke to the former student’s mother, who said her daughter told her of the abuse immediately after it happened, and a friend of the former student, who reported learning about the abuse several years earlier.
In an affidavit filed with the motion to dismiss, WilmerHale general counsel Bruce Berman wrote that “we found both Feinberg’s denial and the victim’s accusation to be credible, but on balance we found the victim to be more credible.”
A second former student told investigators that Feinberg offered her financial support in exchange for sex, calling it a “tradition in the North,” according to KIPP lawyers. The proposition occurred in the early 2000s, at a time when the then-18-year-old worked for the charter network before enrolling in college, according to the motion.
The former student told investigators that she immediately notified her father, at which point they bought a recording device from RadioShack and secretly taped a phone call with Feinberg. On the recording, which WilmerHale officials reviewed, the former student raised the “tradition in the North” comment and told Feinberg that she did not want to engage in the practice, Berman wrote.
“Feinberg responded in turn ‘that’s totally fair’ and that he ‘didn’t want to make her uncomfortable,’” Berman wrote. The filing did not include a full or partial transcript of the recording.
WilmerHale investigators said Feinberg, in an interview with them, denied propositioning the former student and called the exchange a “misunderstanding.” Berman wrote that WilmerHale officials “did not find Feinberg’s denials to be credible.”
Investigators also learned about a second former employee who leveled similar allegations against Feinberg, but the woman declined to cooperate with WilmerHale investigators, according to the motion.
WilmerHale officials also said they searched Feinberg’s KIPP-issued computer during the investigation, finding that Feinberg repeatedly accessed pornographic websites. Feinberg said he only visited the sites during business travel, according to the motion.
Feinberg has maintained strong support among some national charter school leaders and Houston-area community members. Several prominent school choice advocates serve on the governing and advisory boards of his new nonprofit, Texas School Venture Fund. The Houston Business Journal reported in November that Feinberg will help run a day care, vocational school and charter school founded by Gallery Furniture owner Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale.
Feinberg and fellow teacher Dave Levin started KIPP in 1994 in Houston. Feinberg served as a primary catalyst for KIPP’s rapid expansion, proselytizing the charter school’s model across the country. KIPP operates 32 schools across Houston at 13 campus sites.