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A letter to the Legal Department


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August 27, 2003
Dear Mr. Quigley,
Please know that this district does not discriminate against any student. That includes gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered students.
Sincerely,
Bob Moore,
Superintendent,
Oklahoma City Public Schools

Oklahoma City Public Schools

Oklahoma State Department of Education

ACLU of Oklahoma

ACLU: American Civil Liberties Union

PFLAG: Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays

GLSEN: Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network

Lambda Legal

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The following is an email from Joe Quigley
(Posted 9-11-03)

(9-11-03)  Ms Carter,

First I was only going to send this to you at this time, and it was to have become part of the documents (unhappily and unacceptably) Page 3, Volume 2. But, NO. THIS IS WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.
I have been giving this "give-them-a-few-days-before-calling-them" approach, and it is NOT acceptable. Patience is a virtue, but patience should not be taken for granted, especially since it has been abused often enough.
After 6 and a half years Superintendent Moore took a major and potentially controversial step of clarifying that GLBT Students are also protected in the non-discrimination policy. THE BOARD AGREED.
Upon its reception on August 29, 2003, I immediately emailed its contents to Weldon Davis and on the following Tuesday, September 2, I gave him a hard copy to verify the veracity of what I had sent him on 08/29/03. He, therefore, is fully aware of the policy clarification (10 days).
There are documents to which I refer, and I never attended a meeting with him without my UNION REP as witness.

1) He always defended his bizarre antigay activities with the statement that NWClassen could not be the only inclusive school (although he had no problem with ours being the only one with restrictive and selectively applied Paragraph J.) and that things would be better if he got direction from downtown or there was a clearly inclusive policy.
He got it, now he ignores it.
2) Throughout the stupidity of the last four years Davis rejoiced and instantly called me to his office (once verbally reprimanding me for refusing to attend a meeting while conveniently ignoring my note to him that I needed to talk to my UNION REP first which is not a refusal,while he on occasion simply forgot I had asked to meet with him, or he had called me) every time he thought he had me on some violation of a policy. He even attempted this once when he pulled out some obscure, little applied or known policy from the big policy book not accepting ignorance as an excuse and actually saying that it was my responsibility to be aware of and to obey all policies. Usually ( I think it was actually in all cases) the supposed violation was nonexistent, his game failed,or he was attempting to apply a particular policy or memo to cases far beyond their intent.
He is policy retentive when he wants to screw someone, yet he ignores this policy and is given time to think about things. Could it be because it deals with Gay Students?
3) when he found his objections had no legs he came up with a post facto policies andpractices.
To wit:
a) Paragraph J came about as a result of a grievance that had to be settled. He invented this policy which, according to the union, your legal office and the papers I signed he was to have given to all faculty and staff, BUT DID NOT. He ignored for his own purposes to NOT FOLLOW WHAT THE LEGAL OFFICE HAD TOLD HIM AND TO WHAT HE AFFIXED HIS SIGNATURE. Either that or the legal department played a game and lied to the AFT. It took a year to get that memo into the hands of the faculty and only after he was caught in his game.
b) I complied with the requirements of Paragraph J and he consistently denied permission, so the intent of this policy is obvious, once promising to grant permission if I included identifiably heterosexual people in the display. When his activities about Paragraph J were transparently weak, he would come up with a new policy to cover he omission. Two Years ago it suddenly became the responsibility of the Social Studies Department to put up a Gay History Month display when he had no grounds to deny my request. Last year, I agreed to the compromise of just making an announcement for 5 days during October that any student interested in forming a Gay/Straight Alliance should see me, but then he kept coming up with 'reasons' why this announcement had to modified to the point of being meaningless, and it was only in APRIL after AFT stepped in that his game was exposed and the announcementmade, but not without modifying it to once a day while all other announcements were made twice. Now we have the need for clubs and for some reason the involvement of the person who is going to evaluate me being the one whose okay I need even though that is NOT in paragraph J. That move is more than transparent as he set up an adversarial relationship between myself and my evaluator. He knew what he was doing.
The pattern is obvious and documented by paper or the presence of a witness.

Apparently teachers are held to policies, both known and unknown, and must comply with them immediately, but administrators do not have the same requirement. They can thumb their noses at the Superintendent and the Board and be given time to decide about compliance. I was never given that time.

THE POLICY IS CLEAR. THE PRINCIPAL KNOWS WHAT IT IS. THE PRINCIPAL IS PLAYING GAMES AND THE DISTRICT SEEMS TO BE ALLOWING THIS.
Is it actually acceptable that after what it took for the policy clarification,and after notifying the principal of that clarification an administrator can ignore it and be given time to come around? IT IS THE POLICY.

When my supposed violations of policy was a positive thing for GLBT Students the reaction was swift and sure. Now that a district policy is in favor of these same GLBT Students the principal has time to think about following it.. Double standard. Seemed that way from 1999 til now and beyond.
When he suddenly saw a need to pass my notification on to the Dean of Instruction, my evaluator (WHY?), it was his responsibilty to notify her of the policy so she could make an informed decision. He did not. It did not meet his purposes.

Two days is enough time to think. Either the policy has legs, or it is a farce, the superintendent laughable and the school board ignorable. Good message to faculty, staff and students.
We have waited long enough. Make the call. and make the principal comply.
I'm sorry. I tire of the game, the discrimination and the D of I's totally assinine, and apparently principal supported attitude that GLBT Students do not exist.
You do not erradicate the existence of people abd then ask someone to be patient.
Joe Quigley
NWC

 

 

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