Even with details of allegations against L.A. teacher, it’s still a witch hunt
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Version 0 of 1. Information released to the Los Angeles Times under the California Public Records Act contains allegations that award-winning fifth-grade teacher Rafe Esquith made sexual references to students and spanked some of them, partly the results of the work by a Los Angeles Unified School District hit squad formed to investigate hundreds of teachers. I have long considered this a witch-hunt. I know Esquith well, have been in his classes, full of low-income Hispanic and Korean students, and have written much about him. I can imagine his sense of humor leading him to make inappropriate comments, but none of the allegations by the district’s Student Safety Investigation Team have been corroborated by independent investigators. He has not yet had an opportunity to depose his accusers under a lawsuit he has filed against the district for suspending him in April and firing him in October. [‘How is my favorite Hottie?’ Documents allege years of sexual misconduct by famous L.A. teacher] He has been charged with no crime. The only known molestation complaint against him alleges an incident when he was a 19-year-old day camp counselor more than 40 years ago. In a letter to the school district before the documents were released, Escalante’s attorney, Mark Geragos, told me: “This is LAUSD’s latest effort to smear.” I have been gathering material on the nature of the district’s investigative group, called the Tiger Team, which was formed in January 2014 after district officials were traumatized by revelations of teachers molesting students that had gone undetected. The idea was to make sure the slightest complaint was addressed immediately with a massive investigative effort. Many teachers have complained of being suspended for silly reasons — like a colleague thinking a student project was dangerous — and then being allowed to return to their classrooms with their reputations damaged. Geragos’ firm is pursuing a class action lawsuit on their behalf. [L.A. district continues to persecute one of the nation’s best teachers] The Esquith case began with a similarly trivial incident. Esquith told a joke to his class that suggested the students might all have to perform their latest Shakespeare play naked, like a charter in Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn,” if he was not able to raise enough money for the production. A report on his remarks from a teacher who was present, Barbara Hayden, was referred to a state agency that declared Esquith had broken no rules. But the Tiger Team went after him anyway, even after Hayden told Esquith she wanted him back in the classroom. The Los Angeles Times has done good work on this story. Read Zahira Torres’s report. But I am obliged to give you some of the details, particularly since I am so close to Esquith and so convinced he has been mistreated. I think any of us could be made to look bad if an 18-person team were given access to our office computers and set free to ask anyone anything they wanted to know about us, with no chance to investigate those accounts independently. With that in mind, here are the more damning accusations against Esquith: ●The documents say Hayden said Esquith told a student who had completed his work that he could “surf the net for porn. That’s what we do in our spare time.” Esquith pointed to Hayden as he spoke and said he was joking. She also told administrators that Esquith told a student in the play that “if the audience doesn’t like his performance, he can perform while nude, or at least wear a fig leaf. And from what I’ve heard, it would be a small fig leaf.” ●The Tiger Team report claims that Esquith fondled two boys and a girl in the 1970s. One of the boys, whose account has been reported previously, said he was touched several times when he was 9 years old. He said Esquith babysitted him and sexually fondled him. L.A. police apparently received a letter from the alleged victim a decade ago but apparently did not follow up, given the length of time that had passed. ●One of Esquith’s students during the 1990s is said to have reported that he pulled her onto his lap and touched her on the buttocks, causing her to jump away from him. She allegedly said she saw him place female students across his lap and spank them. Jay Gowan, a former fourth-grade teacher at Hobart Boulevard Elementary School where Esquith worked, is said to have told investigators he saw Esquith tickle a female student and on another occasion point to a student and say she “loved green M&M’s” and made an inappropriate sexual reference. ●One student is reported saying Esquith grabbed his neck and slammed him against a wall after learning he kicked another student during the 2011 to 2012 school year. In a meeting with the school principals, the documents said, Esquith denied touching the student. ●Email exchanges, apparently taken from Esquith’s computer, are quoted, including a statement to one of the former students he was helping pay private school tuition: “You are a Goddess.” The student responded: “That’s so weird.” Esquith responded: “Not weird at all. You know many things and are a fabulous student. But you do not understand men and their wants and desires. You are their dream come true.” ●The email excerpts include other allegations that Esquith commented on female students’ appearances. “Beautiful. Elegant. Dazzling. Sexy,” said one. Another said “you teach the torches to burn bright.” Esquith, 61, is married. His wife Barbara Tong is often at the school helping put together the annual Shakespeare performances. She accompanies him on student trips to other states and abroad. ●The documents allege he failed to provide appropriate supervision during those trips. They said he conducted Saturday classes at Hobart and charged $100 a month for students, which he said would be used to help pay expenses on student trips. Eventually court proceedings will sort out these charges. I expect Esquith to resume teaching elsewhere, and to add new works to his four popular books. Hopefully we will learn more then about how these investigations affected the many other teachers that were targeted, and what this has done to the reputation of a school district turning over the lives of any teacher it wants to, on the slightest excuse. |