National Review [California decided] to exempt government agencies, including public
schools, from a new measure intended to enable civil measures against
organizations that harbor pedophiles.
In 2014, California will open a litigation “window” allowing victims
of sex abuse to file lawsuits against the employers of those who abused
them, on the theory that those employers are in some instances partly
culpable for the abuse, which is indeed the case. The “window” is needed
because, in many sex-abuse cases, the statute of limitations for civil
actions runs out before victims come forward. Perversely, the law
exposes only the employers; the abusers themselves remain immune to
litigation. [...]
And it does not stop with litigation windows. In 2012, the Assembly
considered a bill making it easier to fire teachers who sexually abuse
students. Consider for a second that word “easier” — should anything be
easier than simply firing somebody who molests children? The bill was
written in response to the case of a Los Angeles elementary-school
teacher who was fired after being accused of sexually abusing his
students, and who challenged his firing. Rather than act in accord with
the horrifying details of the case,
the school district paid the teacher $40,000 to drop his appeal. That’s
small change compared with the $30 million settlement the district is
paying to the teacher’s alleged victims as a result of the case, or, for
that matter, compared with the $23 million bail requirement that is
keeping teacher Mark Berndt behind bars as he awaits trial on 23 felony
counts of gruesome sexual abuse.
Against that background, making it easier to fire teachers facing
credible accusations of sexual abuse seems like a pretty straightforward
proposition. But the California Teachers Association and other unions
presented a united front against a bill passed by the state senate, and
it died in the Assembly. [...] But if it comes down to the interests of a unionized government employee
vs. those of a nonunionized sex-crime victim, look for the union label.
No comments :
Post a Comment
ANONYMOUS COMMENTS WILL NOT BE POSTED!
please use either your real name or a pseudonym.