Internal investigator at San Diego Unified fired for refusing to cleanse a report about sexual assaults in boys bathroom

I have long argued that there is too much secrecy in schools. A new lawsuit (see NBC 7 article below) makes the same case.

The Michael Gurrieri lawsuit (see NBC 7 article below) against Cindy Marten, the superintendent of San Diego Unified School District, claims that Marten knew and approved of the firing of Gurrieri, an internal investigator who looked into a serious sexual molestation problem at an elementary school. The district wanted Gurrieri's report to be cleansed to cover-up the fact that the principal failed to act to protect children. Gurrieri refused to censor his report as the district demanded, and he was fired.

Marten has filed a Motion to Dismiss herself as a defendant in the case, claiming that Gurrieri has no proof that Marten was involved. I think Marten is a pretty good superintendent; it is the system itself that is bad. In my experience, almost all school districts simply do whatever they want to do, and then have their lawyers protect officials from responsibility. The question of Marten's involvement in personnel actions has been raised regarding the removal of another principal. Many believe that a principal was removed from her school in retaliation for failing to make sure that board member Marne Foster's son got a good college recommendation.

The District Deeds blog and Voice of San Diego have written about recently discovered emails showing that Marten was informed of Marne Foster's wishes.

The following is from the District Deeds blog:

"Regardless of the reason why she removed Lizarraga, the latest emails show that Marten was aware of Foster’s overreach at the school.”
-- Reporter Mario Koran – Voice of San Diego 

Koran has proven, through multiple emails and communication between Trustee Marne Foster and former Chief Student Services Officer Joe Fulcher that copied Supt. Cindy Marten, that BOTH FOSTER AND MARTEN VIOLATED SDUSD Board of Education Policy which states:

"The board will not give direction to any employee other than the superintendent and any other employee who may report directly to the board.”

There is INDISPUTABLE PROOF in the emails that Trustee Foster GAVE DIRECTION to Joe Fulcher …AND THAT CINDY MARTEN IMPROPERLY MADE IT HAPPEN!!! 

Here is a story about the Gurrieri case:

San Diego Unified Lawsuit Moves Forward
Rory Devine and R. Stickney
NBC 7
Aug. 13, 2015

See federal complaint here.

After the San Diego Unified School District paid $105,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging sexual assault in a boy's bathroom, a new suit has been filed relating to the case.

 

A former employee who alleged a "cover up" of student-on-student sexual misconduct at SD Unified will soon be heading to settlement talks with the district.

A September 24 date has been set for settlement negotiations in the suit brought by former school district investigator Michael Gurrieri. He was hired by SDUSD in March 2014 as a probationary internal investigator.

Gurrieri claims he uncovered a problem of student-on-student sexual assaults within the district as he was looking into an allegation at Green Elementary School in San Carlos.

In May 2013, parents of a kindergartener said their son was sexually assaulted by another kindergarten student in the boy's bathroom at Green Elementary. The parents were awarded $105,000 to settle a lawsuit in the case, and the district did not admit guilt.

When Gurrieri filed his report, he claims he was told to remove allegations of incidents of abuse in the school that the principal was aware of and didn't do anything about, according to his attorney.

Gurrieri was terminated from his job because he objected to the district's “cover- up,” his attorney claims.

The lawsuit originally named Superintendent Cindy Marten, Executive Director of the Quality Assurance Office Carmina Duran and the district's General Counsel Andra Donovan as defendants because the district cannot be sued in federal court under the claims of First Amendment violations.

A judge is considering a motion to remove Marten and Donovan that claims Gurrieri failed to prove he had a conversation with either Marten or Donovan regarding his report.

However, Gurrieri's attorneys say the judge has yet to make a final decision on whether Marten and Donovan will be defendants.

Duran did instruct Gurrieri to focus his report on one student's allegations, court documents show.

The district ended Gurrieri's employment in October 2014, court documents show. The district has said it will not comment on pending litigation.

UC Berkeley, other elite schools on federal sex assault probe list; thanks goodness the US Dept of Ed hired Catherine Llamon rather than David Loy

Attorney Catherine Llamon, seen with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigoza in 2011, is now investigating sexual assaults on colleges

Here's a bit of backstory on the US Dept. of Education's Catherine Llamon:

I'm glad the US Department of Education hired a Los Angeles liberal (Llamon) instead one from my hometown, San Diego.

Southern California lawyer Catherine Llamon worked on the ACLU suit against Los Angeles Unified School District regarding the devastating and unequal impact on the poorest schools of teacher layoffs based only on seniority.

Liberals in San Diego won't challenge the California Teachers Association no matter how badly students are harmed by the status quo in teacher layoff procedures. (May 3, 2014 update: a story that came out today supports my point.)

While Catherine Llamon was fighting for kids in Los Angeles, San Diego ACLU attorney David Loy was regularly rolling over and playing dead as schools and their lawyers abused the rights of students and employees. Did Mr. Loy have a good excuse for his deference to San Diego school districts? His defense for inaction was that layoff policies had not yet actually destroyed schools in San Diego.

Emily Alpert noticed the disparity between LA and San Diego. The intrepid reporter (whose school investigations were halted by Voice of San Diego and who was later fired by Voice of San Diego), wrote an article on March 20, 2011 called, "Why Isn’t That Happening Here?"

Alpert wrote, "Lhamon argues that history or no history, school districts can point to the predictable results of last-in-first-out layoffs...the [San Diego] chapter of the ACLU isn’t raring for a lawsuit and wants to let the school district find other solutions short of litigation."

And now back to the main story of this post.

UC Berkeley, other elite schools on federal sex assault probe list
By Kimberly Hefling
Associated Press
05/01/2014

WASHINGTON -- The Education Department on Thursday took the unprecedented step of releasing the names of the 55 colleges and universities facing a Title IX investigation for their handling of sexual abuse complaints, including UC Berkeley and the University of Southern California.

The release came two days after a White House task force promised greater government transparency on sexual assault in higher education. Going forward, the department said, it will keep an updated list of schools facing such an investigation and make it available upon request.

The schools range from large public universities like UC Berkeley, USC, Ohio State University and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor to private schools like Occidental College and Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. Ivy League schools like Harvard, Princeton and Dartmouth are also on the list.

The agency previously would confirm such an investigation when asked -- this newspaper reported on the UC Berkeley investigation last month, and the probes into many of the schools have appeared in news accounts -- but students and others were often unaware of them.

"We hope this increased transparency will spur community dialogue about this important issue," Catherine Lhamon, the department's assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement.

Lhamon said a school's appearance on the list does not mean that it has violated the law but that an investigation is ongoing.

Title IX prohibits gender discrimination at schools that receive federal funds. It is the same law that guarantees girls equal access to sports, but it also regulates institutions' handling of sexual violence and increasingly is being used by victims who say their schools failed to protect them.

In February, dozens of UC Berkeley students and alumna filed a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights, saying the university mishandled their cases. They said Cal put them and others at risk by inadequately disciplining their alleged assailants. Some said the campus treated them insensitively or kept them in the dark about the outcome of the campus disciplinary process.

Some victims turn to their campuses -- in addition to or instead of -- to the police for protection and justice.

The White House has said that 1 in 5 female students is assaulted. President Barack Obama appointed a task force comprised of his Cabinet members to review the issue after hearing complaints about the poor treatment of campus rape victims and the hidden nature of such crimes.

The task force announced the creation of a website, notalone.gov, offering resources for victims and information about past enforcement actions on campuses. The task force also made other recommendations to schools, such as identifying confidential victims' advocates and doing surveys to better gauge the frequency of sexual assault on their campuses.

The department publicized guidance on Title IX's sexual assault provisions in 2011 and complaints by students have since increased. The department can withhold federal funding from a school that doesn't comply with the law, but it has not used that power and instead has negotiated voluntary resolutions for violators.

Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., have said noncompliance under the law is "far too common." They say a lack of federal resources is partly to blame, and they've sought more money to ensure timely and proper investigations.

Staff writer Katy Murphy contributed to this story.