By Milt Harris ——Bio and Archives--June 25, 2023
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A recent report by the Defense of Freedom Institute (DFI), shocked me and then frankly pissed me off and I’m sure that you will feel the same. By the way, being outraged after learning things like this is a positive and necessary response. Nothing will change with this disgusting woke agenda of the radical left unless we are emotionally enraged and appalled by their nauseating ideology and the actions they are taking to use it against our children.
On their website, DFI posts this as their mission statement:
“Our mission is to defend and advance freedom and opportunity for every American family, student, entrepreneur, and worker and to protect our civil and constitutional rights at school and work.”
Paul Zimmerman is Policy Counsel for the Defense of Freedom Institute for Policy Studies (DFI), where he leads its Teacher Union Accountability Project and assists with its federal agency transparency and oversight efforts. He is instrumental in this report.
The report states that federal data from over 97,000 schools across the country are used to document DFI’s findings. For the 2015-2016 school year the U.S. Department of Education’s Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) reported that there were 9,649 incidents of sexual violence. Out of that number 394 were categorized as either rape or attempted rape. For the school year of 2017-2018 the numbers drastically increased to 13,799 incidence and 685 deemed as either rape or attempted rape. That reflects increases of 43 percent and 74 percent respectively.
In the DFI report called “Catching The Trash” that is authored by Paul Zimmerman, discloses that when a public-school employee is investigated for sexual abuse, most school districts are under no legal obligation to list the investigation in the employee’s personnel file or even notify the parents. This leeway allows administrators to pass the offenders off to other schools a strategy that is known as “passing the trash.”
A horrifying statistic finds that a public-school employee who abuses children is passed off to three different school districts on average. The report also finds that the offender can abuse up to 73 children before they are fired or face any legal consequences. This abuse of morality and justice is the result of collective bargaining agreements negotiated between teacher unions and school districts. The report finds that this is a “key contributor to the problem, as they ‘often allow for scrubbing of personnel files.” This “scrubbing” allows for there to be no record of the abuse once an offender leaves the system.
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) requires states to enforce policies that prevent the “passing of trash” from taking place. Unfortunately, most states do a poor job of enforcing the act. For instance, since “Catching The Trash” was published, only a few states like Ohio, Tennessee, and Oregon forbid school districts from aiding offenders to find jobs in other districts. They also prohibit confidentiality agreements that would hide an offending employee’s prior employer’s ability to share information about the person’s misconduct with prospective employers.
DFI President and Co-Founder Bob Eitel put it this way:
“This report uncovers failures at every level to protect students from sexual abuse in public K–12 schools. What’s most shocking is the lengths to which teacher union leaders will go to protect their members suspected of abusing students and the number of states that have ignored their ESEA “pass the trash” obligations. It’s long past time for real action on this issue. This report lays out achievable but powerful solutions that state legislatures, the U.S. Department of Education, and Congress could implement tomorrow to put an end to these horrid occurrences.”
A case in point involves Matef Harmachis, a Santa Barbara High School teacher. Harmachis is a disgusting full-blown pervert and a bigot with distinct Marxist views. His transgressions include making sexually explicit and anti-Semitic remarks to students. He also embraced a student and told her “to rub her body all over his.” He then stated that “it’s OK if you come naked to class.” In another instance he told a female that “Just because you are good in bed, doesn’t mean you can eat in class.
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Harmachis is a classic example of “passing the trash.” Instead of being fired or arrested, he was simply sent from one school to another. That was until 2017, when according to a lawsuit filed against him, he repeatedly sexually harassed, groped, and assaulted a student at Santa Barbara High School. His harassment of the student often took place in full view of other students.
Harmachis was criminally charged with battery of the student. He pleaded no contest and received a criminal sentence. As a result he was fired by the district and his teaching credentials were revoked by the state in March of 2020.
The settlement resulted in the Santa Barbara School District having to pay $950,00 to the victim. Morgan Stewart, the girl’s attorney said:
“I have never seen a case where a school district ignored so many red flags and allowed a dangerous individual to have unfettered access to vulnerable students.”
The DFI report laid out specific reform suggestions to be undertaken at state and federal levels, all are geared to prevent sexual abuse in K-12 public schools. These reforms are taken directly from the report.
Ban secret agreements between school districts and public employees that prevent future employers from knowing about investigations and findings of sexual abuse of students by employees on school grounds, on school transportation, and in school-sponsored activities.
Bar provisions in collective bargaining agreements that authorize secret agreements preventing school district personnel from knowing about investigations and findings of sexual abuse by employees of students on school grounds, on school transportation, and in school-sponsored activities.
Impose penalties on school district personnel who assist an employee in finding a new job in a different school or district despite having knowledge that the employee engaged in sexual misconduct with students.
Impose penalties on any school district employee who knowingly fails to report to law enforcement or child protective services an incident of sexual misconduct against a student on school grounds, on school transportation, and in school-sponsored activities.
Revive the prior administration’s Title IX K–12 enforcement policy and, where appropriate, take steps to withhold federal dollars from local education agencies that repeatedly fail to comply with Title IX.
Require states to comply with ESEA’s requirement to pass legislation prohibiting the practice of passing the trash and outlawing secret agreements that hide sexually abusive behavior by K–12 employees.
Amend the ESEA to clarify penalties to be imposed upon states that fail to prohibit school personnel from aiding and abetting sex abusers in obtaining new employment, specifying a certain percentage of K–12 funding to be withheld for noncompliance.
Pass a transparency law requiring K–12 schools and school districts to inform, on an annual basis, parents, students, and teachers about incidents of violent criminal activity, including sexual abuse, that occur on school grounds, on school transportation, and in school-sponsored activities.
The teacher’s unions have grown much too powerful. Their collusion with school districts across the nation that allow these crimes against our youth to continue is despicable. Many thanks to DFI for their efforts to change “passing the trash” to “Catching The Trash.”
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Milt spent thirty years as a sales and operations manager for an international manufacturing company. He is also a four-time published author on a variety of subjects. Now, he spends most of his time researching and writing about conservative politics and liberal folly.