Sex harass ‘coverup’ in schools
Critics call drop in probes bogus at growing Ed. Dept.
Education Department officials have probed fewer cases of sexual harassment and discrimination in city schools under the de Blasio administration, even as the agency’s number of employees has ballooned.
The sex-probe stats were released as Mayor de Blasio faces growing criticism over the city’s commitment — and transparency — in addressing the issue.
In 2017, investigators concluded just 69 probes of sexual harassment and harassment in the schools. That’s down from 101 cases in 2015, and 98 cases in 2014, which was de Blasio’s first year in office.
Meanwhile, over that same time period, the number of staffers in the city schools grew to 144,077 in 2017 from 134,044 in 2014.
Critics say those numbers don’t add up.
“The public should not be fooled by the city’s statistics,” said prominent victims’ rights lawyer Carrie Goldberg, who’s litigating a number of sexual misconduct suits against the school system.
“For a workforce of this size and the culture being what it is, we can safely conclude somebody is underreporting,” Goldberg added. “There’s a serious coverup.”
Goldberg said that in four cases she litigated against the city, administrators failed to even invoke sexual harassment procedures, including a suit she brought on behalf of a Brooklyn teen with disabilities who reported that she was raped in a school stairwell.
The city paid $950,000 to settle that student’s suit June 14.
Education Department officials won’t say how many of the 338 sex harassment and discrimination cases closed by the agency between 2014 and 2017 resulted in disciplinary action against school employees. The city has taken heat for its handling of allegations of sexual misconduct among city school staffers, prompting de Blasio to promise to hire more investigators to probe the cases. As of April, 133 active cases of sex harassment and discrimination were being handled by department investigators. De Blasio vowed to double their numbers in May, adding 11 more investigators as soon as July with a $5 million investment built into the 2019 city budget. So far none have been hired, and the latest estimate is that new staff will be hired with the beginning of the new school year in September.
Figures released by the de Blasio administration on April 20 identified 471 cases of sexual harassment complaints in city schools from 2013 to 2017.
But education records showed 590 complaints during the same period — a number about 25% higher than the figure reported by de Blasio.
Five days later de Blasio said he didn’t believe all the complaints, telling reporters that “a hypercomplaint dynamic” in the city schools drove a high number of sexual harassment reports.
He walked back the assertion hours later, tweeting that “every single person who has the courage to come forward with a sexual harassment complaint deserves to be believed.”
Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza, who was de Blasio’s second choice for the job, has had his own brush with the hot-button issue.
His actions were at the center of a $75,000 sex discrimination settlement in his previous district of San Francisco in 2016. The suit accused Carranza of ruining the career of a San Francisco educator after she called him out for flirting at a work conference.
Carranza has denied the charges in the suit, and de Blasio has said he doesn’t believe the claims.
Education spokesman Douglas Cohen said the city is thoroughly probing all complaints of sexual harassment.
“There’s no place for sexual harassment of any kind at the DOE, and we have strict protocols in place to ensure all complaints are thoroughly investigated and swiftly addressed,” Cohen said.
“We’re hiring new investigators this month to ensure investigations are conducted in a timely manner, and encourage all employees to come forward with any complaint as we remain vigilant in holding those who are involved in misconduct accountable.”