Why Wasn't Mulgrew Rubber-Roomed For The Grady Woodshed Allegations?

On an earlier post about the NY Post report that UFT President Michael Mulgrew's sister just received a $75,828 a year management position at the DOE after being on child care leave for 11 years (during which time she worked for a tutoring services company that received almost $11 million dollars worth of business from the NYCDOE in 2011), a commenter wrote this:

Well, this is a lot like the Mulgrew at Grady woodshed story.

If he were a mere mortal, he'd be in a rubber room. If we're going to let Mulgrew slide, we should extend the same to the two Horndog High ladies and say that they were consenting adults.

The problem is that there is a double-standard that the higher-ups benefit from connections. How Mulgrew-Daretany got this far suggests that some connections were pulled. Other mothers would be terminated a lot earlier, as rules are extremely stringent on maternity leave in NYC.

The commenter makes two great points here.

I'll deal with the maternity/child care leave point in another post, it's the Grady woodshed story I want to deal with here.

First, let me remind you what the Grady woodshed story was.

A lawsuit filed by a disgruntled teacher claims the powerful head of New York City's teachers union was caught having sex with a teacher in a high school wood shop.

Andrew Ostrowsky says the United Federation of Teachers covered up the scandal to protect Mike Mulgrew, who became president in 2009, and that the union traded key concessions with New York schools officials in order to keep the alleged misconduct quiet.

The lawsuit further claims that the teacher allegedly having sex with Mr Mulgrew, Emma Camacho-Mendez, was rewarded with a cushy union job paying her $22,000 a year, in addition to her $85,000 teaching salary.

 The New York Post reports that former teachers at William E Grady High School in Brooklyn had also heard the rumors about Mr Mulgrew's tryst on a drafting table with Ms Camacho-Mendez in 2005.

 According to the lawsuit, a janitor discovered the pair having sex. New York school officials used that knowledge to 'extort' concessions from the union in exchange for the the city's silence on the matter.

Both Mr Mulgrew and Ms Camacho-Mendez, who is now married, denied the allegations and said they had never heard of the accusations before.

 Additionally, Mulgrew allegedly used his clout to get Ms Camacho-Mendez, a guidance counselor, a job as union liaison for special education.

In 2010, Mulgrew gave Ms Camacho-Mendez an award at a union banquet attended by 1,200 teachers at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

 Union insiders told the Post they aren't sure how Ms Camacho-Mendez received so much attention from union.

 'No one ever heard of this woman until Mr Mulgrew brought her on board,' a union representative told the Post.

She has no union credentials.' 

Now this is the sort of tabloid story that, if Mulgrew were an ordinary teacher at, say James Madison High School, and this showed up in the papers, he would have been immediately pulled from the classroom, placed in a rubber room and maybe even fired.

You know, like these two teachers:

The two "Horndog High" teachers who were sacked after an alleged lesbian sex romp in a Brooklyn classroom are slapping the city with a $2 million lawsuit for trashing their good names.

The Department of Education last month fired Alini Brito and Cindy Mauro, following a state arbitrator's report that said they engaged in a topless tryst at James Madison High School after ducking out of a student song-and-dance show.

A two-page summons with notice, filed Wednesday in Manhattan Supreme Court, says the two romance language teachers are victims of "wrongful termination, libel and slander."

"They've had to deal with these false allegations of engaging in lesbian sex," said Michael Valentine, a lawyer for the classroom cuties. "It's been painful.

"Aside from losing their jobs, their reputations have been ruined."

Brito and Mauro, who have previously filed suit in an attempt to overturn their firings, got yanked from their teaching jobs in November 2009 after a janitor reported barging in on their steamy session in Room 337.

But the formerly tenured teachers contend the janitor simply let his imagination get very overheated.

"He just assumed it was two women having sex," said Valentine of Altman Schochet. "Then he went and told everybody he could tell."

Brito, who has diabetes, defended herself against the sizzling allegations by saying Mauro was giving her candy and sugar to help treat her medical condition.

But a state arbitrator's report countered that the sexy Spanish teacher was topless while a naked Mauro kneeled between her legs.

The women deny that that there was any sex - though their supposed X-rated hijinks at the Midwood school turned them into a punchline and Daily News covergirls.

"There wasn't one person who testified seeing either one of them involved in a sexual act," Valentine said.

The city destroyed school surveillance tape that one of the teachers claimed would have exonerated them both.

 

As a result, a judge reinstated Brito to her job.

Meanwhile Mulgrew, who may or may not have had sex with Camacho-Mendez at the Grady woodshed, nevertheless did put this woman in a union position she had no experience or skills to be in, yet was never called to account for either the sex allegation or the patronage job.

Just another example of how there are two codes of justice - one for the elites and one for the rest of us.

Michael Mulgrew received the elite, kid glove treatment while the two teachers from James Madison High School received the treatment the rest of us get:

Guilty as charged unless you can prove your innocence.