By Ben Velderman
EAGnews.org

NEW YORK – The United Federation of Teachers has a major problem: There are a number of “lonely hearts” among the union’s rank-and-file, and some of them have crossed the line and turned to their students for “attention.”

For example: High school teacher Norman Siegel was accused of pressing his genitalia against a female student’s leg. An arbitrator ruled that the charge was likely true, but Siegel was only punished with a 45-day unpaid suspension, reports the New York Daily News.

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Then there’s the case of gym and health teacher Willie Laraque, who was accused of bending a male student over a desk, leaning in to him and saying, “I’ll show you what is gay.” The Daily News reports that Laraque is back in the classroom after paying a $10,000 fine.

All told, the paper reported that 16 teachers “kept their jobs after being brought up on egregious charges, some sexual, some involving excessive personal familiarity with students.” The district tried to fire these individuals, but the UFT took the cases to arbitration, as allowed in their teachers’ contract. As a result, 14 of these teachers were reinstated into the classroom, and two were assigned “desk duty.”

UFT leaders were clearly embarrassed when those stories began to be reported last spring, but they kept mostly quiet and dutifully took their lumps.

At least until Campbell Brown, the former CNN reporter, wrote a stinging op-ed in late July.

In her column, Brown suggested that the teachers union was damaging its credibility by “being weak on sexual predators.” She cited three instances in which New York City teachers behaved in a predatory manner and were successfully defended by the union, and touted proposed legislation that would give school officials – instead of mealy mouthed arbitrators – the final say in how such teachers are punished.

That was enough to cause UFT Vice President Leo Casey to go off the deep end.

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“The entirely false slander that we protect and defend sexual predators is, for us, the equivalent of a blood libel,” Casey wrote on an education website. (Dictionary.com defines “blood libel” as “the false accusation that Jews murder Christian children to use their blood in religious rituals.”)

He suggests that Brown is a proxy for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and blasts all the UFT’s critics for their “contemptible falsehoods.”

What’s Casey trying to prove by throwing around such loaded terms as “blood libel” and “contemptible falsehoods”?

Perhaps he’s warming up for his forthcoming gig as the executive director of the Albert Shaker Institute, which is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers.

But more likely, Casey is using the overheated rhetoric to create a smokescreen, which obscures the UFT’s long, documented and accurate history of keeping dangerous teachers in the classroom.

Whatever his motives, Casey is looking rather foolish. Someone should inform him that all of these incidents are in the public record, and a just a quick Google search away from being confirmed. As the late baseball manager Casey Stengel liked to say, “You can look it up.”

Even without the public documents, we could accurately assume that the UFT defends pervy teachers. How? Because that’s what labor unions do; it’s who they are. It’s in Big Labor’s creed that even the slimiest, most dangerous members deserve a vigorous defense, even if that puts children in harm’s way.

It will be interesting to see if UFT’s smear campaign against Campbell Brown continues during an upcoming town hall meeting, which will discuss the problem of sexual misconduct in New York’s public schools.

The event is being hosted by the New York City Parents Union, and features a number of panelists, including Brown and UFT President Michael Mulgrew, Casey’s current boss.

Mulgrew would be well-advised to drop the pretense that the union doesn’t protect sexual predators, because nobody’s buying that argument.

Parent union member Mona Davids said it well: “We, the parents and community members, want answers because it’s our children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews in the schools. This town hall’s purpose is to get answers and for all of us to start working together to protect children.”

Even though students don’t pay union dues, maybe it’s time Big Labor makes the protection of children part of its mission. Otherwise it should have no role in public education whatsoever.