00:06:22.000Hey guys, and welcome to another huge episode of Triggered.
00:06:26.000And today is going to be an especially important show because we're doing a deep dive into the massive scandal happening inside school districts across the country, but specifically in California, where teachers committing abuse against students are basically getting a free pass protected by the unions and left-wing power centers.
00:06:48.000And one attorney is taking this fight head on, and he'll be here to lay it all out.
00:06:55.000You've probably heard a little bit about the story where it's become basically impossible, like virtually impossible, to fire bad teachers, even ones who commit illegal acts.
00:07:10.000It's why our students are underperforming so terribly across the globe and relative to the rest of the world.
00:07:18.000And we're going to shine a spotlight on all of it today.
00:07:22.000If you guys know about it, if you make some noise, if you make a big stink, maybe, just maybe, we can actually get rid of bad teachers and get competent ones to take their place.
00:07:33.000And maybe, if all of that happens, our children have a shot at the future they deserve.
00:07:40.000So today is going to be a really interesting show.
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00:09:30.000And guys, it's just months and just a few months, really.
00:09:34.000We're going to be celebrating America's 250th birthday.
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00:10:09.000Learn more at heritage.org slash Don Jr.
00:10:27.000Well, it's great to have you on as a first-time guest.
00:10:30.000So maybe just to start, could you introduce yourself to the audience and lay out how your work standing up for victims has put you in the national spotlight and why this really matters now more than ever?
00:11:00.000But what ended up happening is one of our business clients had a child that was molested by somebody, and we took the case and got a record result in 2001.
00:11:14.000And my phone just exploded initially with cases involving religious institutions, other child care institutions.
00:11:24.000But in 2012, we got a case involving a public school.
00:11:28.000And up until that time, you could not sue a public school in California.
00:11:43.000Even if the school knows that, for example, the teacher is a pedophile and they let them stay, you can't sue them except under a very limited federal statute where the statute of limitations is very, very short.
00:11:56.000So there's no accountability, no culpability for this before, I guess, these cases?
00:12:10.000Like I said, we were able to get the law changed.
00:12:12.000And when I first started doing these cases, I would say if this happened in a public school, there would be retribution.
00:12:21.000I just had no idea of the magnitude of this.
00:12:25.000And so as time went on and it began to get worse and worse and worse, I started to look into it.
00:12:31.000And what I found is that it's an epidemic.
00:12:35.000The federal government, both in 2004, the Department of Education, and 2017, in December of 17, the Department of Justice determined in two studies that 10% of students in K-12 public schools in this country will suffer some sort of sexual misconduct by teachers.
00:13:31.000Can you imagine if 10% of flight attendants in this country were turned out to be child molesterers or pick a profession, what would happen?
00:13:40.000But yet here we have institutionalized protections of teachers, largely through teachers unions and school districts and what I call the public education sort of machine that engages in protection.
00:13:54.000And it's important to understand here that schools are nor is anybody else, any other corporation liable if somebody molests a child.
00:14:04.000The only reason they can be civilly liable for damages is if we can prove that the school knew or had reason to know this person was a perpetrator.
00:14:16.000So you see millions of dollars in settlements, in some cases billions over, you know, over in states, and it's because they knew and did nothing.
00:14:35.000These are children, little children, kindergartners, third graders, sixth graders, adolescents from four to three to 17.
00:14:45.000And so, you know, the good news is we thought in California and a few other states, they passed statutory windows to address this.
00:14:57.000And so we were able to lift the statute limitations on some of these older cases and go after the institutions that allowed this to occur.
00:15:06.000And what's happened now is there are certain elements in California's political establishment that are getting pressure from teachers, from joint powers authorities, which are these public entities that sort of operate the insurance apparatus for schools, and teachers' unions that are trying to shut this down.
00:15:27.000Moreover, they're opposing any kind of real reform.
00:15:38.000Well, I mean, if you're able to change the law in California, I can't imagine this not being like a 99-1 issue that everyone in the country would agree on, except for portions of it, probably the radical left who are sort of okay with all of these insanities.
00:15:52.000And obviously they control the teachers' union.
00:15:54.000So it may not be political, but the reality is the teachers' union probably hasn't donated to a Republican in decades.
00:16:00.000They're one of the largest fundraising apparati for the, you know, for the Democrat Party.
00:16:05.000So I imagine it's still concentrated that way.
00:16:07.000The issue itself may not be political, but clearly the teachers' unions are and have been for a long time.
00:16:14.000I mean, it feels like this is something you can get in front of Congress.
00:16:33.000They wouldn't vote for the 4th of July unanimously.
00:16:37.000In California, they'd probably vote against it.
00:16:39.000But yes, I understand what you're saying.
00:16:40.000But what's strange is it's an interesting dichotomy.
00:16:46.000We have a Democrat state senator named Perez who is a left-wing Democrat, but courageously put a bill in to actually establish real reform.
00:16:58.000The teachers' union not only opposed it, they withdrew her support for her.
00:17:02.000And we have, you know, so it's it's just, it's beyond me that we have, you know, a speaker of the assembly, for example, Speaker Rebus, who refuses to meet with survivors of public schools.
00:17:30.000And I don't understand for the life of me how a teachers union, the first job of a teacher, the first job of any of us is to stand between somebody who hurt a child and do our job.
00:18:14.000So I'm hoping that we can get people to pay attention to this.
00:18:20.000And we certainly have some attention in Congress.
00:18:25.000We had, you know, over time, we've had a, you know, we've had some success, but it's just, you know, when you meet these families of these kids, and the irony is in California, 95% of the victims are Latino and black.
00:18:39.000They're all the children that these folks say they want to protect.
00:19:05.000Well, I mean, I know your firm's been in the trenches on this now for years, and you've called what's happening in California public schools an epidemic, which at, you know, 10%, you know, 5.7 million kids facing some sort of, you know, sexual abuse.
00:19:18.000I mean, I don't know what's much more of an epidemic than that.
00:19:23.000And I know, you know, again, that's not a word you throw around lightly.
00:19:26.000For people who are just hearing about this for the first time, you know, the number, 5.7 million kids potentially affected throughout the country.
00:19:38.000I mean, that honestly, you know, it's an issue I suspected, but it's not something I was even all that much aware of until even some of my team sort of saw what you were doing and were like, hey, man, this is like an issue we have to highlight.
00:19:52.000In terms of the actual scale, man, I can't think of a bigger issue.
00:19:58.000I mean, this seems like something that we should be able to go to any congressman in any district in the country and just be able to say, hey, why don't you run with this legislation?
00:20:08.000If you got 100% of the California legislature to vote for it, who wouldn't vote for it?
00:20:40.000This is the U.S. Justice Department in the Bush administration and the U.S. Justice, I'm sorry, the Department of Education in the second Bush administration and the Department of Justice in the Obama administration.
00:20:51.000And the woman who authored those studies has subsequently written a book.
00:20:54.000It was published in December of 24 by Harvard, not known as a bastion of right-wing thinking.
00:21:04.000Yeah, I was going to ask you because it sounds like the data I was reading about in sort of prepping for this is it suggests up to 17% of public school students nationally will experience or witness sexual misconduct by school personnel.
00:22:50.000You know, there's an LAUSD has an assignment agreement, an agreement with the union where you get reassigned If you've, among other things, if you've been, you've sexually abused somebody, okay, there's a reassignment.
00:23:07.000The parents in the class where they think the kid was molested don't get notified.
00:23:13.000There is not a single law in this country that requires that parents be notified if their teacher was removed for credible allegations of abuse.
00:23:22.000The Catholic Church even has that rule.
00:23:41.000You've used the phrase like, you know, basically passing the trash to describe what happens when a teacher or staff member is accused of abuse.
00:23:47.000And again, instead of being fired, instead of being prosecuted, instead of being in jail where they belong, they just get quietly reassigned to another school, another district where they can go and do it again.
00:24:01.000I mean, again, these numbers are staggering, but maybe there's no way to track it because if they're not reporting it, they just sort of do it and hope no one catches it again.
00:24:21.000You can't go in any state and find a central list of teachers convicted of pedophilia or remove for pedophilia, whether they're convicted or not.
00:24:30.000You don't have to be convicted to remove.
00:24:32.000If you did it, you should lose your job.
00:24:34.000It's impossible because of the unions to fire them.
00:24:37.000But the answer is moving a teacher who's been accused of sexual misconduct with a kid to a new school is commonplace in many districts.
00:24:49.000And we have instances where somebody's been removed for horrible stuff and they get a letter of recommendation and they go teach in another school.
00:24:57.000So the states cannot do this on their own.
00:25:02.000In my opinion, there should be two things that happen here.
00:25:06.000One is committee hearings in the Senate or House on this, where we actually take evidence so the American public can see it.
00:25:15.000And secondly, that the Department of Justice and the Department of Education use their tools, which they have, to go after this.
00:26:15.000And I can think of a case involving this teacher in South LA named Martin Burnt, who did things that are just so bad to children, I can't even say it.
00:26:25.000And there was one teacher, this young woman who was right out of Berkeley, who wanted to teach in a Title I school in a poor neighborhood for altruistic reasons.
00:26:34.000And he was exposing himself to the kids.
00:26:38.000And she was basically run out of the school.
00:26:41.000So, you know, I just think that, you know, this is the only institution that I have encountered and I know of where if you don't send your kid there, you go to jail.
00:26:56.000This is not like church or the Boy Scouts or anything else where they're volunteer organizations.
00:27:01.000If you don't send your kid to school, you go to prison.
00:27:05.000So, you know, we're in this situation where this is in desperate need of attention.
00:27:11.000I mean, you've said, I mean, sort of just said it now, but that, you know, basically firing a teacher in most of these states is next to impossible and that districts often just actually pay them to go away, probably often with that letter of recommendation.
00:27:24.000You know, how does a parent hear that and not lose their mind?
00:27:29.000You know, what kind of grassroots support do you have from parents?
00:27:34.000Because I mean, it does feel like, again, this is such a sensitive issue affecting so many people.
00:27:39.000I can't imagine a single parent that would be okay with this in any way, shape, or form.
00:27:44.000You know, how is it that even someone like me who sort of does this for a living at this point, you know, doesn't understand anywhere near the depths of this issue.
00:27:55.000I mean, I figure, hey, I understand incompetence.
00:27:57.000I understand they promote teachers who don't teach well and they've got tenure.
00:28:09.000And yet it's almost, you know, again, if I don't know about it, I can't imagine all that many people really understand the depth of the depravity there.
00:28:18.000Well, let me take that in two sections.
00:30:49.000They're hiding it and they're hiding it because if they tell the truth, the political reaction will be massive and it should be.
00:30:58.000So I hope, I hope that parents are listening to this go to their schools and say, you know, in their school, their school officials and say, how many children, how many people do you know of that have taught here in the last 10 or 15 years have abused kids?
00:31:14.000And watch the rats scurry for the rail.
00:31:17.000That should be like the number one thing they should have to answer, let alone, you know, not the number one thing they're able to hide from the public.
00:31:26.000And rest assured, after, you know, after this is done, I'm going to send this to every congressman I know to be like, hey, by the way, like, what the hell?
00:31:33.000I mean, this seems like an easy win that everyone in America would like.
00:31:38.000Yeah, every, every member of Congress should be on this.
00:31:42.000Are there any that have been actually, you know, on the forefront of trying to actually do something?
00:31:47.000Or is it, you know, sort of the usual congressional lip service?
00:31:51.000In fairness, I just started trying to get down that aisle.
00:31:56.000And the only person that's been supportive, interestingly, when he was still a Republican, was Mr. Kiley.
00:32:03.000So, you know, and he was the chairman of a subcommittee.
00:32:07.000I think that I know there's plenty that will be.
00:32:10.000I mean, we had, when we were dealing with the Nasser case, we had bipartisan support on this.
00:32:16.000And I do believe there are Democrats out there who, if they understood the magnitude of this, would deal with it.
00:33:36.000I'm certainly no fan of a teachers' union.
00:33:38.000I've probably said publicly, I think they've probably held back our kids academically more than any other institution or whatever in this country.
00:33:50.000I think they've generally been a disaster.
00:33:51.000But why would they protect an abusive teacher?
00:33:56.000Is it just that teacher pays dues and therefore we got to go to the mattress for them?
00:34:01.000It feels like if there was anyone with any common sense in there whatsoever, and I'm not saying there are, that they would be like, okay, yeah, no, that's someone we're willing just to scrap and send off to jail.
00:35:05.000They're expecting 40% of teachers to leave their positions in the next 10 years.
00:35:11.000They get no support from administration.
00:35:14.000Kids beat them up and nobody does a thing.
00:35:18.000I think the problem is that it's cultural in that the unions, the school boards, a lot of administrators look at children as a funding mechanism, not as God's little human being.
00:35:33.000Yeah, and I believe one of the teachers unions heads.
00:35:36.000Somebody, you know, I think the quote was something to the effect of, I'll start worrying about children when they start paying union dues.
00:35:42.000Yeah, that's the guy who used to be head of the union in New York, whose name escapes me.
00:36:15.000Yeah, and I'm sure that school could have easily used that six-figure payout for something within that school, maybe to help those children rather than give this guy who's sitting in jail a nest egg, which I'm not sure what he does with, but probably leaves it to heirs if he has them.
00:36:32.000The thing that's important to understand about Los Angeles and New York in these Title I schools, and for your audience, Title I schools are basically schools that have kids that are in a low economic range, have low test scores, et cetera.
00:36:44.000And they get a lot of federal money and a lot of attention.
00:36:47.000And on back to school night in those schools, the highest paid person in the room is the teacher.
00:36:54.000And in Latino culture, I can tell you they respect it.
00:36:59.000The maescrow and maestro have tremendous respect.
00:37:02.000And these folks have taken advantage of it, almost to the point, by the way, of threatening to call what used to call ICE.
00:37:09.000If you don't do this or do that, I want to call ICE.
00:37:12.000And so you've got a lot of parents that are scared.
00:37:15.000And then the other piece of this is in Palisades or Malibu or the Upper East Side, the lowest paid person on back to school night, the highest, the lowest paid person on back to school night is the teacher.
00:37:29.000And you don't see it there because parents in those neighborhoods, they have power, they have education, they have resources, and these folks don't.
00:37:37.000And what you see is districts placing these bad apples in these schools, like the school I mentioned earlier, Miramont Elementary, it's in South LA.
00:37:49.000You can't go out there at night, you can't.
00:37:54.000And they kept this guy there knewing exactly what he was doing.
00:37:59.000So, I mean, in part because of your work, California lifted the statute of limitations on sex abuse lawsuits, which was obviously the right thing to do.
00:38:07.000But still, even some California Democrats, again, tried to push a bill that would have essentially reinstated the statute of limitations, essentially slamming the door shut on future victims.
00:38:41.000They not only wanted to shut it down, they wanted to eliminate or cap their ability to get damages.
00:38:47.000At one point, they proposed a fund, a quote, a fund like 9-11.
00:38:52.000If you have to have a fund to pay little children that have been molested, you have a massive problem in public schools.
00:39:00.000So, you know, the governor has not taken a position on this.
00:39:06.000His staff actually did meet with us, but he vetoed a bill that would have allowed children who were molested in juvenile halls to file cases.
00:39:18.000So I don't know where he stands, but I don't know if I'm sure you saw it that Cesar Chavez has been disclosed to have molested 13-year-old girls in the last 48 hours, which is sad and hard to believe.
00:39:32.000And the same people that were trying to advocate to kill the ability of children in public schools to make claims are out talking about how we support survivors, we love them, blah, blah, blah.
00:39:45.000And the hypocrisy there is just staggering.
00:39:48.000So as a country, we need to really look at our public education institution, public education system, and say there's something really broken here when 10 to 17% of kids are subject to this.
00:40:00.000Yeah, no, again, I thought it was broken when they graduate a lot of kids in some of these, I guess, Title I areas that can't read or do basic math.
00:40:09.000They still get their high school diploma.
00:40:11.000I thought that was disgusting, but this is crazy.
00:40:14.000And again, given how difficult it is to figure out the reporting, if you're saying 10% that we know of, I imagine the number has to be much higher.
00:40:32.000A lot of people in this area think it's higher who study in this area.
00:40:37.000You know, they're they're, you know, when your eyes start to roll back in your head when you, when you, in your head, when you think about the magnitude of this and the impact, you know, when this happens to a kid, you know, all of us have the right to choose our first sexual experience.
00:40:55.000And when that's stolen from you in third grade and this, this old gross guy who's a teacher molests your kid and molests you, and that's your first sexual experience, it impacts your entire life.
00:41:49.000So, yeah, I just, I think government's first job is to protect the vulnerable in society and, you know, protect the most vulnerable, our citizens.
00:42:02.000And this is certainly in that category.
00:42:04.000So, John, you know, we're covered the fraud that's been uncovered in California in the home and hospice industry and the massive amounts of spending that just disappears off into the ether.
00:42:16.000You know, the California Teachers Association is one of the biggest political spenders in the state.
00:42:21.000They pour millions into Democrat campaigns every cycle.
00:42:24.000That's probably the case nationally as well.
00:42:28.000And now those same Democrat politicians are the ones who'd have to basically hold the unions accountable for protecting predators.
00:42:37.000It seems like a pretty big hurdle to overcome.
00:42:40.000But, you know, what are the hurdles to accountability when the money flows so very clearly the way it does?
00:42:49.000Well, I think that you have to have politicians with courage.
00:42:52.000And there are Democrats out there who have been courageous and said, I don't care what the teachers' union says, I'm voting for it.
00:43:18.000They're kids in your schools that you're the head of.
00:43:20.000The superintendent of public instruction, say something.
00:43:23.000Our attorney general actually has done some stuff.
00:43:25.000He's actually sued districts and trying to act.
00:43:29.000Rob Bonta, who's a Democrat, but we have a few Democratic legislators who actually listened to us and helped us kill this bill, but largely they won't even meet with us.
00:43:41.000They won't meet with these children of their parents.
00:43:45.000I'm not saying he's doing that, by the way.
00:43:47.000I'm saying that he's been, he signed the bill and I give him credit for it, but he's been absolutely silent on this effort to stop children from filing suits.
00:44:00.000And again, it's not, you have to prove that the school knew.
00:44:05.000We're not saying, hey, if you're molested, you get a bunch of money from the government, even they didn't do anything wrong.
00:44:29.000I don't understand how anybody who claims to, who's a parent, who's a grandparent, who's a human being, allows this to continue to go on, especially somebody who's in the education business.
00:44:45.000I mean, I'm shocked to actually hear all this stuff.
00:44:48.000I mean, but, you know, John, you know, you have said that you want Congress, the Department of Education, the DOJ to step in and address this crisis at the federal level.
00:44:56.000You know, in your mind, you know, what specifically needs to happen there?
00:44:59.000Because I feel like that's perhaps a place you get a little bit more traction than certainly with Democrat legislatures.
00:45:06.000So first of all, Title IX, which the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights runs, gives the Department of Education wide latitude to investigate this and to oppose sanctions.
00:45:17.000For example, in the Nasser case, when Secretary DeVos was there, they imposed a huge fine on Michigan State for its handling on Nasser.
00:45:28.000I would think it was over a million dollars.
00:45:31.000That was the U.S. gymnastics case where the coach was like molesting the athletes.
00:46:33.000The Justice Department has a role in that They can file lawsuits against districts for violating civil rights.
00:46:41.000I mean, bodily integrity and not being raped by your teacher seems pretty fundamental to me.
00:46:47.000And I know that there's been some interest in the Justice Department and looking at this.
00:46:54.000But I think the biggest problem we, and there's also a role for Congress, which is, for God's sakes, hold hearings on this.
00:47:00.000You know, we hold hearings on everything under the sun, and yet we've got this massive problem in our country, and no one's holding a hearing on it.
00:47:09.000So I, and what really changed Americans' minds in the Olympic context was the Senate hearings where those gymnasts testified, where Simone Biles and Allie Raisman and Michaela Maroney testified and told their stories.
00:47:29.000I also think that the Department of Education could issue regulations that says, look, if you don't announce to parents when a teacher is removed for credible allegations, you don't get federal money.
00:47:41.000You know, we do that in a lot of areas.
00:47:43.000For example, the reason, you know, when I was 18, I could drink in Washington, D.C. You can't do that anymore.
00:47:49.000And the reason for that is that Elizabeth Dole, who was the Secretary of Transportation, basically said to states, if you don't make your drinking age 21, you don't get federal highway funds.
00:48:00.000So the cabinet officials have a lot of power to do these things and impose this on states.
00:48:06.000And, you know, normally I'm not a big proponent of federal government imposing anything on anybody.
00:48:12.000But here, I think it's warranted because they won't do it themselves.
00:48:16.000And this is not just a blue state problem.
00:48:20.000There's big problems in red states too, for the same reasons of teachers' unions.
00:48:25.000I guess, you know, you mentioned it a little bit, you know, earlier on, but on a personal note, what really led you to take up this fight in this area of law?
00:48:32.000I mean, obviously, it wasn't your expertise, but you sort of got all, you got involved, and it seems like you sort of went all in, which I thank you for.
00:49:32.000It's almost like being a prosecutor, but working outside of government.
00:49:37.000And I think our work has changed things.
00:49:40.000And, you know, if you, you have, I have four kids, I know you have kids, and you think about what a third grader looks like, and you put that, you know, you think about the first day of school and you pack that kid off and you entrust them with people.
00:49:54.000You know, the schools are supposed to behave like parents.
00:49:57.000The standard is in loco parentis, in the place of the parent.
00:50:00.000And if they're not doing that and worse, they're allowing this to happen.
00:50:35.000But where can people go to learn more?
00:50:37.000Well, I think there's a couple places.
00:50:38.000One about the issue itself is the Center for Defense of Freedom has an excellent article on passing the trash that I think lays out the problem very succinctly.
00:50:49.000The National Center for Victims of Crime, their website is excellent.
00:50:59.000We have a lot of information on there.
00:51:01.000But I think just, you know, and for example, the Justice Department's study is from, if you search, you know, U.S. Department of Justice, K through 12 school employee sexual misconduct, it'll come right up and you can read it.
00:51:19.000The thing I would tell people is that if you suspect this, call the police.
00:51:24.000Don't, you know, first call should not be to the school.
00:51:27.000The first call, if your child comes home and you suspect that something's happened to your child, call the police.
00:51:33.000And sadly, you know, then talk to the school.
00:51:36.000But, you know, the problem here is that what's happening in these cases is them when you reasonably suspect that a child's been molested as a teacher administrator, your job is to report.
00:51:49.000And instead of reporting, they investigate themselves.