Connecticut attorney general William Tong announced Wednesday that he is launching a probe into a case of alleged religious hiring discrimination by an administrator at a Greenwich public school.
An undercover video captured by Project Veritas depicted Cos Cob elementary school assistant principal Jeremy Boland admitting to rejecting teaching candidates who espouse Catholic or conservative views, while favoring younger applicants who are more willing to indoctrinate students into adopting a progressive worldview.
The superintendent said last week that Boland was placed on administrative leave pending a district investigation into his conduct.
http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD2kM39S4d4
“Discrimination, hate, bigotry against any person and any against any religion or on the basis of age or otherwise, is reprehensible and wrong. This video is disturbing, and if teachers, school staff, or applicants for education jobs have been illegally discriminated against for any reason, I will take action,” Tong said at a Thursday press conference.
Tong said that he is invoking his civil-rights enforcement authority to determine whether illegal discrimination happened. He asserted that he does not “play politics” with students and schools and promised to run the investigation “by the book and according to our standard regulatory procedure.”
The Connecticut chapter of the National Education Association, the largest teachers’ union in the country, took a defensive stance after the scandal broke, urging its district leaders to stonewall “unvetted” reporters who ask about the incident.
“We have been alerted that Project Veritas has dropped a hit piece using an administrator in Greenwich. While a teacher was not used(so far) the narrative is that of hiring liberal teachers to indoctrinate students, so it is not kind to educators,” Kate Dias, president of the Connecticut Education Association, said.
The video was circulated across the state’s education apparatus.
“You don’t hire them,” Boland said of Catholics in the secretly recorded conversation with a Project Veritas journalist. “Because if someone is raised hardcore Catholic, it’s like they’re brainwashed. You can never change their mindset. So, when you ask them to consider something new, like a new opportunity, or ‘you have to think about this differently,’ they’re stuck — just rigid.”
Joe Kelly, a Republican member of the Greenwich board of education, said he interpreted Boland’s words as targeting officials who think like him.
“I am a Catholic, not practicing, but I am Catholic. I am old, I am 59 years old. According to what we saw in that video, I wouldn’t qualify to work at Cos Cob School because I’m too old for that, and I’m a republican. So I guess the most damning comments he had were all at me,” he told WFSB.
Connecticut Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal also encouraged further review of the episode, according to WFSB. “There has to be a credible investigation, the school board has begun it, but the attorney general may well have a necessary role,” he said.