Privacy and Predatory Teachers
Published on July 31, 2008
In a 5-3 decision, the Washington Supreme Court rules that the public does not get to know the identities of teachers accused of “unsubstantiated” sexual misconduct.
In a decision that may have broad implications restricting the ability of journalists and the public to hold public officials accountable, the Washington Supreme Court has ruled that even the
identities of school teachers repeatedly accused of sexual misconduct by students is private information that cannot be disclosed under the state’s public records act.
The court’s decision reversed a state court of appeals ruling that sided with the Seattle Times in that newspaper’s efforts to investigate teacher sexual abuse in the Bellevue School District, one of the state’s largest. The decision was accompanied with a biting dissent authored by Justice Barbara Madsen who accused the court majority of rewriting the state’s privacy protection law to expand public employee privacy rights well beyond what the state legislature intended.
The court’s ruling came in the case of Bellevue John Does 1-11 v. Bellevue School District #405. The case grew out of public records requests Seattle Times reporters made in 2002 seeking records related to student allegations of sexual misconduct against teachers in Bellevue and two other Puget Sound area school districts. In the Bellevue action, the teachers filed suit against the school district to block the district from providing certain records sought by the newspaper.
The trial court and the appeals court both ruled that the identity of teachers against whom sexual misconduct charges had been substantiated, or who were disciplined for sexual misconduct, should be made public. But the Court of Appeals went further, finding that unless allegations against a teacher were found to be false, the allegations were a matter of public record along with the teachers’ identities. The appeals court also ruled that so-called “letters of direction,” that “seek to guide or direct” a teacher’s future performance were also public record and thus disclosable to the newspaper and other requesters.
It was these two Court of Appeals rulings–(1)that the public has no right to the identity of teachers accused of “unsubstantiated” sexual misconduct, and (2) no right to the identity of teachers who receive guidance letters to alter their conduct–that the Supreme Court reversed today.
The Supreme Court majority, led by majority opinion author Justice Mary Fairhurst, drew a very bright and simple line: unless a sexual misconduct allegation against a teacher was confirmed and/or a reprimand or act of discipline issued, then the teacher’s right to privacy trumps the public’s right to know.
“The fact of the allegation, not the underlying conduct, does not bear on the teacher’s performance or activities as a public servant,” Justice Fairhurst wrote. “The mere fact of the allegation of sexual misconduct toward a minor may hold the teacher up to hatred and ridicule in the community, without any evidence that such misconduct ever occurred.”
The majority opinion laid out three clear findings:
1) “Allegations of sexual misconduct against a teacher constitute personal information” under state law.
2) “Teachers who are the subjects of unsubstantiated allegations of sexual misconduct have a right to privacy in their identities.” And,
3) “Disclosure of unsubstantiated allegations of sexual misconduct violates a teacher’s right to privacy” under state law.
As for the “letters of direction,” the majority ruled that while the state’s public records act requires their disclosure, “there is no legitimate public concern in information identifying teachers” receiving the letters. Thus, the letters should be made public, but with the identity of the teacher “redacted”–blacked out.
Joining Justice Fairhurst in the majority were Justices Susan Owen, James Johnson, Bobbe Bridge and Chief Justice Gerry Alexander.
In an 18-page dissent, Justice Madsen said the majority had not just erred in interpreting the statutory right of privacy but had disregarded the legislature’s expressed intent in 1987 to limit a public official’s right to privacy to the intimate details of “one’s personal and private life.”
“The [Seattle] Times is correct,” Justice Madsen wrote, “that the material in a teacher’s file relating to allegations of sexual misconduct involving students is not information that is protected by the right of privacy. It does not pertain to intimate details of one’s personal and private life but is instead information about alleged specific instances of misconduct occurring in the course of the teacher’s performance of his or her private duties–a kind of information that this court has specifically identified as not encompassed by the right of privacy.”
Among those earlier decisions Justice Madsen cited was an important case involving the Spokesman-Review’s successful efforts in 1988 to obtain the names of state patrol officers against whom complaints had been upheld following internal investigations. In that case and in a 1993 case, she wrote, the state Supreme Court was clear in finding that a public official’s right to privacy did not extend into suppressing complaints about his or her official conduct, about which the public has a legitimate interest. And that principle, she wrote, was the same one at issue in the Bellevue case.
Madsen’s dissent included reference to a 2004 federal report that found that one in ten students in grades 8 to 11 endures instances of sexual misconduct by at least one teacher.
“It is important to bear in mind that unsubstantiated does not mean untrue,” Justice Madsen wrote.
“Under the majority’s holding, the public in Washington will not have access to information necessary for determining whether the State’s school districts satisfactorily address allegations of teacher sexual misconduct. As a consequence, predatory teachers may go undetected and unpunished. But the most unfortunate consequence, and one that is completely unacceptable, is that if predatory teachers are undetected, children will continue to suffer at their hands.”
Justice Madsen was joined in her dissent by Justices Charles Johnson and Richard Sanders. Justice Debra Stephens did not participate in the decision.
Posted July 31st