Posted on Advocate.com August 02, 2011 03:10:00 PM ET
Sharp Words From Teachers at King/McInerney Trial
By Neal Broverman
http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/08/02/Sharp_Words_From_Teachers_at_KingMcInerney_Trial/ (http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/08/02/Sharp_Words_From_Teachers_at_KingMcInerney_Trial/)
Monday's testimony in the trial of Brandon McInerney, charged with killing gay California teen Lawrence King, was highly charged, with some teachers placing blame with King's lesbian assistant principal for not taking more action before the February 2008 shooting.
Susan Crowley, King's seventh-grade special education teacher, said she doubted the truth of some of the previous testimony of former assistant principal Joy Epstein, reports the Ventura County Star. Epstein said that school officials were actively dealing with the issues related to King, who was being teased by fellow students for wearing high-heeled boots and makeup. Epstein also testified that not many teachers had complained to her about King's attire. Crowley herself had, at one point, asked King to remove a pink scarf he was wearing.
Quote"My comment was that if something wasn't done soon, Larry would be taken behind the back shed of the P.E. area and be beaten to death," Brown said. "I said something to the effect of, 'Gay rights? What about the rights of the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders who come here and are not ready for this information?'
I haven't really been following this story, mainly because it seemed such a local issue, important as it is.
But I don;t understand this at all.
If 6th, 7th and 8th grade are old enough to beat some kid to death, surely they are old enough to undertstand some basic realities.
Now it seems, on the basis of this testamony, that these teachers were not just prepared to stand back and see a young boy being beaten to death, they were quite prepared to see other young boys throwing theior own lives away with criminal charges, at least of assault. As it happens, those teachers have not only destroyed the life of the dead boy, but the lives of those involved in his murder.
What sort of people are these? That they, teachers, can see several young boys, destroying their lives? Never mind that one boy was homosexual and the others didn't like it.
I have to say, I am utterly astonished, that these teachers could even dare to admit what they have done.
Even with video cameras, school bullies are smart enough to bully their victims out of sight of the cameras and the adults. School staff can say, and mean every word of it, that they never saw it happen. The fact is, schools in reality only give lip service to anti-bullying measures (more often motivated by possible liability, then ethics/morals) and many school staff reassure themselves that its "just boys being boys" despite the fact that there is no comparable adult behavior that wouldn't be considered illegal.
We will never completely erase school based bullying, but until administrators get serious about it - it will never end. The teachers did the best they could under the circumstances. You can only complain so many times, before you begin to understand that to continue to complain will just get you regarded as "not a team player" and your career will suffer.