Teacher privacy ruling a dangerous misstep
Monday, August 4, 2008 12:32 AM PDT
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E-mail this articleAug. 4 Daily News editorial
The state Supreme Court has created another exemption to Washington’s Public Records Act — one that could put children at greater risk of sexual abuse. On Thursday, the court ruled 6-3 that the names of public school teachers under investigation for sexual misconduct can be kept secret. The decision partially reversed an earlier ruling by the state Court of Appeals, which held that the Public Records Act requires disclosure of the accused teachers’ identities unless the allegations are clearly false.
We believe the lower court got it right. While teachers have valid privacy concerns with regard to false allegations, those concerns must be balanced with the public concern for the safety of school children. The Supreme Court’s ruling lacks that balance.
The case at issue stems from a 2003 investigation by The Seattle Times, according to Associated Press writer Rachel La Corte. The Times found that 159 coaches in Washington had been fired or reprimanded for sexual misconduct. The school districts often had not investigated the complaints and failed to report them to police or the state education office. When the Times filed public disclosure requests seeking records relating to the complaints, several teachers sued to keep the records secret.
Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling in favor of secrecy prompted a strong dissent from Justice Barbara Madsen. According to La Corte’s report, Madsen wrote that the decision could conceal information needed to determine whether Washington school districts are addressing sexual misconduct allegations, meaning that “predatory teachers may go undetected and unpunished.” Madsen added that “the most unfortunate consequence, and one that is completely unacceptable, is that if predatory teachers are undetected, children will continue to suffer at their hands.”
Indeed, the Seattle Times investigation suggests that this has been the case in too many instances; school districts have failed to adequately investigate allegations in order to avoid public scrutiny and simply allowed predatory teachers to move to another district. It’s a practice commonly known as “passing the trash.”
Madsen believes the court majority’s contention that unsubstantiated allegations of misconduct are matters “concerning the teachers’ private lives” is mistaken, and so do we. Madsen wrote that “the material in a teacher’s file relating to allegations of sexual misconduct involving students is not information that is protected by the right to privacy. It does not pertain to the intimate details of one’s personal and private life but is instead information about alleged specific instances of misconduct occurring in the course of the teacher’s performance of his or her public duties — the kind of information that this court has specifically identified as not encompassed by the right of privacy.”
Rastor wrote on Aug 4, 2008 5:25 PM:
Outside Observer wrote on Aug 4, 2008 8:00 PM:
A teacher has at the minimum 5+ years of education and training. A 12-year-old with a grudge or for spite, revenge, or vengeance, can wipe all that out with a quickly fabricated story. The steep increase in false accusations has got to be reined in.
The Washington State Supreme Court ruled a teachers personal and family life and career cannot be totally destroyed without so much as a hint of truthfulness to the accusation.
This is a very good ruling. "
just a joe wrote on Aug 8, 2008 10:13 PM:
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