Triggered - Donald Trump Jr - Schoolhouse Shock: Attorney John Manly on the Terrifying Abuse Epidemic Inside Public Schools | Triggered Ep.327

00:06:22.000 Hey guys, and welcome to another huge episode of Triggered.

00:06:26.000 And 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.

00:06:48.000 And one attorney is taking this fight head on, and he'll be here to lay it all out.

00:06:55.000 You'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.

00:07:08.000 It's a really big deal.

00:07:10.000 It's why our students are underperforming so terribly across the globe and relative to the rest of the world.

00:07:18.000 And we're going to shine a spotlight on all of it today.

00:07:22.000 If 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.

00:07:33.000 And maybe, if all of that happens, our children have a shot at the future they deserve.

00:07:40.000 So today is going to be a really interesting show.

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00:10:18.000 Guys, joining me now is attorney and victim right advocate John Manley.

00:10:23.000 John, welcome to the program.

00:10:25.000 Thank you.

00:10:25.000 Thank you for having me.

00:10:26.000 I appreciate it.

00:10:27.000 Well, it's great to have you on as a first-time guest.

00:10:30.000 So 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?

00:10:41.000 Sure.

00:10:43.000 I'm not a trial lawyer or a plaintiff lawyer by training.

00:10:46.000 I'm actually a real estate lawyer.

00:10:47.000 I represented real estate developers for years and years and years.

00:10:51.000 And I've dealt with those types quite a bit before I took on this new world.

00:10:55.000 Suspect.

00:10:58.000 But me, not you.

00:11:00.000 Yeah.

00:11:00.000 But 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.

00:11:14.000 And my phone just exploded initially with cases involving religious institutions, other child care institutions.

00:11:24.000 But in 2012, we got a case involving a public school.

00:11:28.000 And up until that time, you could not sue a public school in California.

00:11:33.000 We got the law changed.

00:11:34.000 How is that even possible?

00:11:37.000 Well, it's actually the case in most states.

00:11:39.000 There's what is called sovereign immunity.

00:11:42.000 So you can't sue the government.

00:11:43.000 Even 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.

00:11:56.000 So there's no accountability, no culpability for this before, I guess, these cases?

00:12:02.000 In most states, the answer is no.

00:12:05.000 Schools have total immunity in many states.

00:12:09.000 Now, not California.

00:12:10.000 Like I said, we were able to get the law changed.

00:12:12.000 And when I first started doing these cases, I would say if this happened in a public school, there would be retribution.

00:12:21.000 I just had no idea of the magnitude of this.

00:12:25.000 And so as time went on and it began to get worse and worse and worse, I started to look into it.

00:12:31.000 And what I found is that it's an epidemic.

00:12:35.000 The 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.

00:12:55.000 Did you say 10%?

00:12:57.000 I said 10%.

00:12:58.000 I mean, that's millions of kids.

00:13:01.000 There's 57 million kids in public schools in this country.

00:13:06.000 And so you have 5.7 million a year that will suffer some set of sexual misconduct.

00:13:11.000 I want to be clear, not all of it's molestation, but it has a gamut ranging from inappropriate sexual talk all the way to rape.

00:13:20.000 And even if it was half that or a quarter of that, even if it's 1%.

00:13:26.000 So can you imagine?

00:13:27.000 I'm saying one child, but yeah.

00:13:30.000 Yeah, one child.

00:13:31.000 Can you imagine if 10% of flight attendants in this country were turned out to be child molesterers or pick a profession, what would happen?

00:13:40.000 But 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.

00:13:54.000 And it's important to understand here that schools are nor is anybody else, any other corporation liable if somebody molests a child.

00:14:04.000 The 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.

00:14:16.000 So 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.

00:14:26.000 Now, these are not college students.

00:14:30.000 That's bad enough.

00:14:31.000 These are not adult women.

00:14:33.000 That's bad enough.

00:14:35.000 These are children, little children, kindergartners, third graders, sixth graders, adolescents from four to three to 17.

00:14:45.000 And so, you know, the good news is we thought in California and a few other states, they passed statutory windows to address this.

00:14:57.000 And 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.

00:15:06.000 And 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.

00:15:27.000 Moreover, they're opposing any kind of real reform.

00:15:30.000 And it's political.

00:15:32.000 And it's not Republican.

00:15:33.000 It's not Democrat.

00:15:34.000 It's just wrong.

00:15:36.000 So that's the background.

00:15:38.000 Well, 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.

00:15:52.000 And obviously they control the teachers' union.

00:15:54.000 So it may not be political, but the reality is the teachers' union probably hasn't donated to a Republican in decades.

00:16:00.000 They're one of the largest fundraising apparati for the, you know, for the Democrat Party.

00:16:05.000 So I imagine it's still concentrated that way.

00:16:07.000 The issue itself may not be political, but clearly the teachers' unions are and have been for a long time.

00:16:14.000 I mean, it feels like this is something you can get in front of Congress.

00:16:14.000 How do we not?

00:16:17.000 And I can't imagine that congressman holding their seat for very long if they don't vote for this.

00:16:23.000 Well, it's funny you say that because the bill opening a statute of limitations passed unanimously.

00:16:28.000 Every member of the legislature in California voted for it.

00:16:31.000 That never happens.

00:16:33.000 They wouldn't vote for the 4th of July unanimously.

00:16:37.000 In California, they'd probably vote against it.

00:16:39.000 But yes, I understand what you're saying.

00:16:40.000 But what's strange is it's an interesting dichotomy.

00:16:46.000 We have a Democrat state senator named Perez who is a left-wing Democrat, but courageously put a bill in to actually establish real reform.

00:16:58.000 The teachers' union not only opposed it, they withdrew her support for her.

00:17:02.000 And 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.

00:17:14.000 We asked him repeatedly, won't do it.

00:17:16.000 Why?

00:17:17.000 And I think, sadly, I think you've hit the nail on the head.

00:17:20.000 This is not every Democrat, but this is certain Democrats who just are, I think, care more about politics than children.

00:17:20.000 I want to be clear.

00:17:30.000 And 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.

00:17:43.000 We got to stand between them.

00:17:44.000 And they won't.

00:17:45.000 They oppose any type of legitimate reform.

00:17:47.000 They oppose mandatory reporting.

00:17:49.000 Imagine an organization that's supposed to help us educate our kids and is the largest teacher organization in the country.

00:18:00.000 The American Federation of Teachers, the National Educational Association, the California Federation of Teachers.

00:18:06.000 And they oppose mandatory reporting when you suspect a child is being sexually abused.

00:18:12.000 What?

00:18:13.000 And that's what we're dealing with.

00:18:14.000 So I'm hoping that we can get people to pay attention to this.

00:18:20.000 And we certainly have some attention in Congress.

00:18:25.000 We 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.

00:18:39.000 They're all the children that these folks say they want to protect.

00:18:43.000 And they're all minority kids. 0.92

00:18:46.000 This doesn't happen at Pacific Palisades or Malibu.

00:18:49.000 It happens in South LA.

00:18:51.000 It happens in Pacoima.

00:18:53.000 It happens in the Central Valley.

00:18:56.000 So it's just maddening that we're at this point. 0.78

00:19:01.000 And the hypocrisy is staggering.

00:19:05.000 Well, 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.

00:19:18.000 I mean, I don't know what's much more of an epidemic than that.

00:19:23.000 And I know, you know, again, that's not a word you throw around lightly.

00:19:26.000 For people who are just hearing about this for the first time, you know, the number, 5.7 million kids potentially affected throughout the country.

00:19:35.000 I mean, that's insane to me.

00:19:38.000 I 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.

00:19:52.000 In terms of the actual scale, man, I can't think of a bigger issue.

00:19:58.000 I 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?

00:20:08.000 If you got 100% of the California legislature to vote for it, who wouldn't vote for it?

00:20:13.000 Well, I think that that's true.

00:20:16.000 It reminds me a lot of the USA gymnastics case where I was the lead counsel.

00:20:21.000 And when the Senate and the House got wind of that, they put in legislation and your father signed it in his first term.

00:20:28.000 So I think the answer is they don't know.

00:20:32.000 I think people hear this and they think it's some crazy plaintiff attorney in California spewing BS.

00:20:38.000 These are not my statistics.

00:20:40.000 This 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.

00:20:51.000 And the woman who authored those studies has subsequently written a book.

00:20:54.000 It was published in December of 24 by Harvard, not known as a bastion of right-wing thinking.

00:21:02.000 And she now believes it's 17%.

00:21:04.000 Yeah, 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.

00:21:18.000 17%.

00:21:19.000 I mean, again, if it was 1%, it's too much.

00:21:22.000 If it was one student, I think that's too much.

00:21:24.000 But up to 17% through sort of, again, data published by Harvard, to your point, not exactly a bastion of right-wing thought.

00:21:34.000 Walk us through that number because that's just wild.

00:21:38.000 It's based on data she's collected.

00:21:40.000 She's a PhD and was at Hofster for many years.

00:21:43.000 I forget where she is now, but she's a well-respected scholar and not somebody who has a political bent at all.

00:21:50.000 She's just an academic. 0.99

00:21:52.000 And, you know, I can just tell you empirically, I see this accelerating.

00:21:57.000 I've been doing it a long time.

00:21:59.000 I've been doing 30 years.

00:22:01.000 And I don't know why it's accelerating, but it is.

00:22:04.000 But what's really troubling is not the fact that it's troubling that anybody would be a pedophile in a school.

00:22:11.000 But that's where pedophiles go.

00:22:12.000 They go to youth organizations. 0.97

00:22:14.000 And, you know, pedophiles.

00:22:16.000 Like when you ask the bank robbers, why are you rob banks? 0.96

00:22:19.000 Because that's where the money is, I guess.

00:22:20.000 That's where the dough is.

00:22:21.000 Right.

00:22:22.000 So here, what's really disturbing is the total indifference and worse, in many instances, institutional concealment of this.

00:22:34.000 Okay, for example, in LA Unified, there's two administrators that were convicted of failing to report a sex abuse case.

00:22:44.000 Convicted, sentenced.

00:22:46.000 They still work there.

00:22:47.000 In fact, they've been promoted.

00:22:50.000 You 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.

00:23:06.000 But guess what?

00:23:07.000 The parents in the class where they think the kid was molested don't get notified.

00:23:13.000 There is not a single law in this country that requires that parents be notified if their teacher was removed for credible allegations of abuse.

00:23:22.000 The Catholic Church even has that rule.

00:23:24.000 The Catholic bishops has the rule.

00:23:26.000 If they remove a priest, since 2002, this has been a rule.

00:23:29.000 If they remove a priest for credible allegations of abuse, they notify the public and the parishes.

00:23:34.000 In public schools, they don't do that.

00:23:37.000 So why?

00:23:38.000 Yeah.

00:23:40.000 Sorry, Don.

00:23:41.000 You'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.

00:23:47.000 And 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.

00:23:59.000 How widespread is that practice?

00:24:01.000 I 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.

00:24:10.000 Tell these people, don't do it again.

00:24:11.000 I have a feeling that doesn't happen with pedophiles.

00:24:15.000 But what's the framework that's allowing that to happen?

00:24:18.000 Just because there's no central list.

00:24:21.000 You 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.

00:24:30.000 You don't have to be convicted to remove.

00:24:32.000 If you did it, you should lose your job.

00:24:34.000 It's impossible because of the unions to fire them.

00:24:37.000 But 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.

00:24:47.000 It's commonplace.

00:24:49.000 And 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.

00:24:57.000 So the states cannot do this on their own.

00:25:02.000 In my opinion, there should be two things that happen here.

00:25:06.000 One is committee hearings in the Senate or House on this, where we actually take evidence so the American public can see it.

00:25:15.000 And secondly, that the Department of Justice and the Department of Education use their tools, which they have, to go after this.

00:25:25.000 And I'm hoping they'll do that.

00:25:27.000 But I see these families, I see these kids.

00:25:33.000 And the thing I find in, and I want to be clear, not every teacher is a perpetrator.

00:25:38.000 The heroes in our cases are teachers.

00:25:42.000 They usually report and usually they get run over when they report.

00:25:45.000 Well, that's what I was going to ask.

00:25:46.000 I mean, it's sort of like you're seeing with the fraud allegations in California and in Minnesota.

00:25:52.000 The whistleblowers actually were the ones that faced accountability.

00:25:57.000 They were blackballed.

00:25:58.000 They were fired.

00:25:59.000 They were not promoted.

00:26:01.000 They were given crappy jobs for pointing out what was clearly obviously happening.

00:26:07.000 But just that squeaky wheel in that case didn't get the oil.

00:26:11.000 It got the exact opposite.

00:26:12.000 Yeah.

00:26:13.000 No, that's what happens.

00:26:15.000 And 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.

00:26:25.000 And 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. 1.00

00:26:34.000 And he was exposing himself to the kids.

00:26:37.000 And she reported it.

00:26:38.000 And she was basically run out of the school.

00:26:41.000 So, 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.

00:26:56.000 This is not like church or the Boy Scouts or anything else where they're volunteer organizations.

00:27:01.000 If you don't send your kid to school, you go to prison.

00:27:05.000 So, you know, we're in this situation where this is in desperate need of attention.

00:27:11.000 I 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.

00:27:24.000 You know, how does a parent hear that and not lose their mind?

00:27:29.000 You know, what kind of grassroots support do you have from parents?

00:27:34.000 Because I mean, it does feel like, again, this is such a sensitive issue affecting so many people.

00:27:39.000 I can't imagine a single parent that would be okay with this in any way, shape, or form.

00:27:44.000 You 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.

00:27:55.000 I mean, I figure, hey, I understand incompetence.

00:27:57.000 I understand they promote teachers who don't teach well and they've got tenure.

00:28:00.000 You know, fine, that's all terrible.

00:28:02.000 Your children are losing out on an education.

00:28:04.000 That's disastrous for their life.

00:28:06.000 But this is so much beyond that.

00:28:09.000 And 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.

00:28:18.000 Well, let me take that in two sections.

00:28:20.000 You talked about teachers being paid.

00:28:22.000 So I mentioned this guy, Mark Burnt, who was this teacher in LA.

00:28:27.000 He was basically, and this is a true trigger warning for your audience.

00:28:32.000 So if you're children listening, turn your computer off or whatever is a radio.

00:28:39.000 I don't know.

00:28:39.000 I'm 61.

00:28:40.000 Who knows?

00:28:42.000 Let's put the volume off for a couple seconds here.

00:28:44.000 Thank you. 0.98

00:28:46.000 He was putting his semen in Oreo cookies and feeding it to kids. 0.95

00:28:50.000 And he did this for years. 0.50

00:28:52.000 There are four or five hundred victims at this point.

00:28:55.000 And he was arrested.

00:28:56.000 He was charged with this.

00:28:57.000 And they knew he did it.

00:29:00.000 He got paid $160,000 and got a full retirement.

00:29:05.000 How is that possible?

00:29:08.000 But if you were I did that, I mean, we'd be in jail.

00:29:11.000 How does a teacher get special protections that no citizen would, you know, would be on a sex offender's watch list without question?

00:29:19.000 I mean, and rightfully so.

00:29:20.000 And I don't even understand.

00:29:23.000 He's in jail, but they paid him anyway.

00:29:25.000 He's in jail for the rest of his life.

00:29:26.000 He's convicted.

00:29:28.000 So he's convicted of the crime and he doesn't lose his rights to those monies?

00:29:34.000 That's insane.

00:29:35.000 It's insane.

00:29:36.000 In most states, that's the case.

00:29:37.000 California, after that, we were helping, the law was changed.

00:29:42.000 But still, I mean, what do you have to do to get fired?

00:29:46.000 You know, we're going to settle with you.

00:29:48.000 We're going to pay you.

00:29:50.000 You know, this is, we're living in crazy town with this, and that's the truth.

00:29:55.000 And I just, you, you, you stare at this and you look at this.

00:30:01.000 And, you know, for example, LAUSD, the Los Angeles Unified School District, New York City schools, they, they pay these claims.

00:30:08.000 They're all done in executive session.

00:30:10.000 So it's all in secret.

00:30:12.000 There's never been a public hearing on this.

00:30:16.000 If you ask them how many teachers they know of that have been credibly accused of abuse, they won't give it to you.

00:30:21.000 If you request...

00:30:23.000 So you can't even like FOIA that?

00:30:24.000 No, I...

00:30:25.000 I've gotten nothing.

00:30:27.000 They won't give it to you.

00:30:29.000 In fact, earlier this month, earlier this year, two months ago, I sent a FOIA request in California.

00:30:35.000 It's called the California Public Records Act to every school district in the state, almost 1,300 districts.

00:30:41.000 You know how documents I've gotten?

00:30:43.000 Three, three pages.

00:30:45.000 I've gotten, I'm not giving it to you.

00:30:47.000 Your regard, the thing is too broad.

00:30:49.000 They're hiding it and they're hiding it because if they tell the truth, the political reaction will be massive and it should be.

00:30:58.000 So 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?

00:31:14.000 And watch the rats scurry for the rail.

00:31:17.000 That 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.

00:31:24.000 I mean, that's insane.

00:31:26.000 And 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?

00:31:33.000 I mean, this seems like an easy win that everyone in America would like.

00:31:38.000 Yeah, every, every member of Congress should be on this.

00:31:42.000 Are there any that have been actually, you know, on the forefront of trying to actually do something?

00:31:47.000 Or is it, you know, sort of the usual congressional lip service?

00:31:51.000 In fairness, I just started trying to get down that aisle.

00:31:56.000 And the only person that's been supportive, interestingly, when he was still a Republican, was Mr. Kiley.

00:32:03.000 So, you know, and he was the chairman of a subcommittee.

00:32:07.000 I think that I know there's plenty that will be.

00:32:10.000 I mean, we had, when we were dealing with the Nasser case, we had bipartisan support on this.

00:32:16.000 And I do believe there are Democrats out there who, if they understood the magnitude of this, would deal with it.

00:32:24.000 I just don't think people know.

00:32:26.000 And if they hear it from a lawyer, perhaps justifiably, they don't believe it, but they don't need to listen to me.

00:32:33.000 They can go to the federal government's own statistics and just, you know, every day in the paper, there's something new.

00:32:40.000 There's a new one all over the country.

00:32:42.000 And it needs to stop.

00:32:44.000 And I think all of us who are, you know, you're in a position, I'm in a position as a lawyer.

00:32:52.000 We all have an obligation to try to protect kids.

00:32:55.000 And especially when we're forcing them to go to this place where they're supposed to be protected.

00:33:01.000 The irony about school shootings is rightfully, we've, you know, we've hardened schools, we put gates around them.

00:33:07.000 Think about what that's like, though, if there's a perpetrator in the school.

00:33:10.000 You've put the children in the lion cage.

00:33:13.000 Yeah, no, it's that it's crazy.

00:33:16.000 Okay, well, I'm going to definitely do that.

00:33:18.000 But let's talk a little bit more about teachers' unions, John.

00:33:22.000 I mean, you've been very direct in saying that the unions are helping protect obviously abusive teachers, resisting mandatory reporting.

00:33:31.000 How exactly and why exactly are the unions enabling this?

00:33:34.000 I mean, again, I get it.

00:33:35.000 I understand what they are.

00:33:36.000 I'm certainly no fan of a teachers' union.

00:33:38.000 I've probably said publicly, I think they've probably held back our kids academically more than any other institution or whatever in this country.

00:33:50.000 I think they've generally been a disaster.

00:33:51.000 But why would they protect an abusive teacher?

00:33:55.000 What's the upside for them?

00:33:56.000 Is it just that teacher pays dues and therefore we got to go to the mattress for them?

00:34:01.000 It 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.

00:34:11.000 Yeah.

00:34:12.000 First of all, I'm not against unions.

00:34:13.000 I was a member of the IBEW when I was a guy in college and the retail clerks union.

00:34:18.000 And I think unions have a role in our society.

00:34:21.000 But these unions have lost their way.

00:34:25.000 They are led by people who truly don't, in my opinion, don't care about children.

00:34:33.000 And I'm not judging their character.

00:34:35.000 I'm just telling you the result of what they're doing.

00:34:36.000 No, that's pretty clear.

00:34:37.000 If you listen to their commentary during COVID and what, you know, they didn't want to teach.

00:34:41.000 They didn't want to do remote classes.

00:34:42.000 They wanted to get paid in full.

00:34:44.000 And it was like, well, what are we paying you to do?

00:34:46.000 To not teach and not do remote work?

00:34:47.000 It's like, I too would love to take a year off or whatever it may be.

00:34:51.000 It's not your job.

00:34:52.000 It doesn't work that way.

00:34:53.000 I think that teachers, if you know teachers who are there for the right reasons, it's a hard job.

00:35:02.000 And we're looking now in California.

00:35:05.000 They're expecting 40% of teachers to leave their positions in the next 10 years.

00:35:11.000 They get no support from administration.

00:35:14.000 Kids beat them up and nobody does a thing.

00:35:18.000 I 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.

00:35:33.000 Yeah, and I believe one of the teachers unions heads.

00:35:35.000 I think I read a quote in the book.

00:35:36.000 Somebody, you know, I think the quote was something to the effect of, I'll start worrying about children when they start paying union dues.

00:35:42.000 Yeah, that's the guy who used to be head of the union in New York, whose name escapes me.

00:35:48.000 But yeah, I've seen that quote too.

00:35:51.000 And to be honest, it sort of moves out that way. 0.53

00:35:55.000 What kind of organization steps up and defends somebody who puts semen in kids' cookies?

00:36:04.000 And they're third graders, third graders.

00:36:06.000 And we're going to negotiate on his behalf.

00:36:08.000 Are you serious?

00:36:10.000 Corporations don't have to defend criminals who engage in criminal activity.

00:36:14.000 Why are they?

00:36:15.000 Yeah, 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.

00:36:30.000 That's crazy.

00:36:32.000 The 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.

00:36:44.000 And they get a lot of federal money and a lot of attention.

00:36:47.000 And on back to school night in those schools, the highest paid person in the room is the teacher.

00:36:54.000 And in Latino culture, I can tell you they respect it.

00:36:59.000 The maescrow and maestro have tremendous respect.

00:37:02.000 And these folks have taken advantage of it, almost to the point, by the way, of threatening to call what used to call ICE.

00:37:09.000 If you don't do this or do that, I want to call ICE.

00:37:12.000 And so you've got a lot of parents that are scared.

00:37:15.000 And 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.

00:37:29.000 And 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.

00:37:37.000 And 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.

00:37:49.000 You can't go out there at night, you can't.

00:37:52.000 And it's incredibly dangerous.

00:37:54.000 And they kept this guy there knewing exactly what he was doing.

00:37:59.000 So, 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.

00:38:07.000 But 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.

00:38:21.000 How do they even get away with it?

00:38:22.000 I mean, it feels like if you're going to do this publicly in California, this is going to be written into law.

00:38:27.000 How can you have your name shutting off that statute, slamming that door on those victims and still win elected office?

00:38:37.000 I can't imagine that being possible.

00:38:39.000 It's worse than that.

00:38:41.000 They not only wanted to shut it down, they wanted to eliminate or cap their ability to get damages.

00:38:47.000 At one point, they proposed a fund, a quote, a fund like 9-11.

00:38:52.000 If you have to have a fund to pay little children that have been molested, you have a massive problem in public schools.

00:39:00.000 So, you know, the governor has not taken a position on this.

00:39:06.000 His 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.

00:39:18.000 So 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.

00:39:32.000 And 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. 0.54

00:39:45.000 And the hypocrisy there is just staggering.

00:39:48.000 So 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.

00:40:00.000 Yeah, 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.

00:40:09.000 They still get their high school diploma.

00:40:11.000 I thought that was disgusting, but this is crazy.

00:40:14.000 And 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.

00:40:21.000 You just, you'd never actually know.

00:40:23.000 I mean, that's what I'm trying.

00:40:24.000 If they can prove 10%, imagine what they can't prove or haven't been able to, or haven't even tried to prove yet.

00:40:30.000 Yeah.

00:40:31.000 Well, that's the thing.

00:40:32.000 A lot of people in this area think it's higher who study in this area.

00:40:37.000 You 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. 0.60

00:40:55.000 And 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.

00:41:14.000 It effectively is emotional murder.

00:41:16.000 And so you have this, if those are really the statistics, think about the sort of exponential effect that's going to have on society.

00:41:27.000 And, you know, I can tell you from representing these people, they don't want to go back to school.

00:41:31.000 It affects their ability to learn.

00:41:33.000 It affects their ability to make a living.

00:41:35.000 And prisons are filled with people this happened to, not just in schools, but other places.

00:41:41.000 Oh, yeah, that's just the first domino, you know, in a lifelong disaster, basically.

00:41:48.000 Yeah.

00:41:49.000 So, 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.

00:42:02.000 And this is certainly in that category.

00:42:04.000 Yeah.

00:42:04.000 So, 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.

00:42:16.000 You know, the California Teachers Association is one of the biggest political spenders in the state.

00:42:21.000 They pour millions into Democrat campaigns every cycle.

00:42:24.000 That's probably the case nationally as well.

00:42:28.000 And now those same Democrat politicians are the ones who'd have to basically hold the unions accountable for protecting predators.

00:42:37.000 It seems like a pretty big hurdle to overcome.

00:42:40.000 But, you know, what are the hurdles to accountability when the money flows so very clearly the way it does?

00:42:49.000 Well, I think that you have to have politicians with courage.

00:42:52.000 And 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.

00:42:58.000 So, but there's not enough of them.

00:43:00.000 I would think we need a governor who takes the lead on this and says, you know, I want to run for president.

00:43:06.000 I'm going to disclose this.

00:43:08.000 You know, his wife is a survivor.

00:43:10.000 Horrible.

00:43:12.000 You know, for God's sakes, say something.

00:43:15.000 This is wrong.

00:43:16.000 These are kids.

00:43:18.000 They're kids in your schools that you're the head of.

00:43:20.000 The superintendent of public instruction, say something.

00:43:23.000 Our attorney general actually has done some stuff.

00:43:25.000 He's actually sued districts and trying to act.

00:43:29.000 Rob 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.

00:43:41.000 They won't meet with these children of their parents. 0.98

00:43:43.000 They wouldn't meet with me.

00:43:45.000 I'm not saying he's doing that, by the way.

00:43:47.000 I'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.

00:44:00.000 And again, it's not, you have to prove that the school knew.

00:44:05.000 We're not saying, hey, if you're molested, you get a bunch of money from the government, even they didn't do anything wrong.

00:44:10.000 That's not it.

00:44:11.000 You have to show they knew.

00:44:13.000 And if your kid goes to school and the school knows that there's a child rapist in the classroom and they do nothing.

00:44:18.000 Or another school knowingly puts them into a different school or different school district.

00:44:21.000 I mean, it's sort of the same thing, right?

00:44:24.000 And so I just don't get it and I don't understand it.

00:44:24.000 Amen.

00:44:29.000 I 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.

00:44:42.000 Yeah, you know, it's wild.

00:44:45.000 I mean, I'm shocked to actually hear all this stuff.

00:44:48.000 I 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.

00:44:56.000 You know, in your mind, you know, what specifically needs to happen there?

00:44:59.000 Because I feel like that's perhaps a place you get a little bit more traction than certainly with Democrat legislatures.

00:45:05.000 Sure.

00:45:06.000 So 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.

00:45:17.000 For example, in the Nasser case, when Secretary DeVos was there, they imposed a huge fine on Michigan State for its handling on Nasser.

00:45:28.000 I would think it was over a million dollars.

00:45:31.000 That was the U.S. gymnastics case where the coach was like molesting the athletes. 0.52

00:45:35.000 It was the doctor.

00:45:36.000 And that was our case.

00:45:36.000 Yeah.

00:45:37.000 I represented the Olympians in that case.

00:45:40.000 And so we had bipartisan support to reform there.

00:45:48.000 But Title IX, most people think it applies to colleges, but they don't understand it.

00:45:52.000 It actually applies also to every K-12 public school that gets federal money in the United States, which is all of them.

00:45:58.000 So, and I can tell you, when we take depositions in these cases and we try them, nobody complies with Title IX in these schools.

00:46:07.000 If you say, who's your Title IX rep, which every school is supposed to have, nine times out of 10, they won't know.

00:46:12.000 There's widespread noncompliance.

00:46:14.000 So in these districts where this is a massive problem, the Department of Education could go in and take action and fine them.

00:46:24.000 And by the way, the power includes totally eliminating federal money if they don't comply.

00:46:31.000 It's a huge hammer.

00:46:33.000 The Justice Department has a role in that They can file lawsuits against districts for violating civil rights.

00:46:41.000 I mean, bodily integrity and not being raped by your teacher seems pretty fundamental to me.

00:46:47.000 And I know that there's been some interest in the Justice Department and looking at this.

00:46:54.000 But I think the biggest problem we, and there's also a role for Congress, which is, for God's sakes, hold hearings on this.

00:47:00.000 You 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.

00:47:09.000 So 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.

00:47:24.000 So those are some of the steps.

00:47:29.000 I 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.

00:47:41.000 You know, we do that in a lot of areas.

00:47:43.000 For example, the reason, you know, when I was 18, I could drink in Washington, D.C. You can't do that anymore.

00:47:49.000 And 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.

00:48:00.000 So the cabinet officials have a lot of power to do these things and impose this on states.

00:48:06.000 And, you know, normally I'm not a big proponent of federal government imposing anything on anybody.

00:48:12.000 But here, I think it's warranted because they won't do it themselves.

00:48:16.000 And this is not just a blue state problem.

00:48:20.000 There's big problems in red states too, for the same reasons of teachers' unions.

00:48:25.000 I 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?

00:48:32.000 I 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.

00:48:40.000 Yeah, I think it was two things.

00:48:42.000 Number one, the first person I sued, the first perpetrator I sued, happened to be the principal of my high school.

00:48:49.000 Now, he didn't molest me, but it turns out he molested a bunch of my friends.

00:48:54.000 And so that had a profound effect on me.

00:48:58.000 And I was mad.

00:49:00.000 You know, I'm not a, you know, I'm not a, I don't know.

00:49:06.000 I don't know how to describe it.

00:49:07.000 I just got mad.

00:49:08.000 And I think my dad's from Iowa, and I was sort of raised with sort of Midwestern common sense.

00:49:14.000 And I just got upset.

00:49:16.000 And what I've been able to do is put together a group of people.

00:49:19.000 Most of our lawyers at this point are firmer sex crimes prosecutors.

00:49:24.000 And, you know, I just think that, you know, there's no gray here.

00:49:31.000 And I like that.

00:49:32.000 It's almost like being a prosecutor, but working outside of government.

00:49:37.000 And I think our work has changed things.

00:49:40.000 And, 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.

00:49:54.000 You know, the schools are supposed to behave like parents.

00:49:57.000 The standard is in loco parentis, in the place of the parent.

00:50:00.000 And if they're not doing that and worse, they're allowing this to happen.

00:50:05.000 We need to get them.

00:50:06.000 We need to, they're worse than the perpetrator, in my opinion.

00:50:10.000 And almost nobody's prosecuted for it.

00:50:13.000 It's crazy.

00:50:14.000 John, you know, where can people learn more about what you're doing?

00:50:17.000 You know, I tell people, you know, hey, like, share, subscribe.

00:50:20.000 You know, send this one to your Congress person, your senators, even your state legislatures.

00:50:26.000 Like, if there's ever an episode that you send to someone in state government, hey, what are you doing about this?

00:50:34.000 It's this.

00:50:35.000 But where can people go to learn more?

00:50:37.000 Well, I think there's a couple places.

00:50:38.000 One 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.

00:50:49.000 The National Center for Victims of Crime, their website is excellent.

00:50:55.000 Our firm is www.manlystewart.com.

00:50:59.000 We have a lot of information on there.

00:51:01.000 But 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.

00:51:19.000 The thing I would tell people is that if you suspect this, call the police.

00:51:24.000 Don't, you know, first call should not be to the school.

00:51:27.000 The first call, if your child comes home and you suspect that something's happened to your child, call the police.

00:51:33.000 And sadly, you know, then talk to the school.

00:51:36.000 But, 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.

00:51:49.000 And instead of reporting, they investigate themselves.

00:51:51.000 Yeah.

00:51:52.000 Right.

00:51:52.000 Well, usually people who investigate themselves don't find themselves guilty.

00:51:56.000 That's just been my experience.

00:51:58.000 No, I think that's fair.

00:52:00.000 Well, you know, guys, you know, check out all those things.

00:52:02.000 You know, share this one with your government elected officials.

00:52:07.000 It's a really big one.

00:52:08.000 John Manley, thank you very much for joining us.

00:52:11.000 You know, again, I'll contact my team.

00:52:13.000 Let me know what I can do to help.

00:52:14.000 But I can assure you, I'm going to be doing the same thing because this is absolutely insane.

00:52:18.000 But really appreciate the time and thanks for the work that you're doing.

00:52:21.000 My pleasure.

00:52:22.000 And also, I want to tell you, my son's a Marine officer.

00:52:24.000 So I pray for your dad and I pray for your family.

00:52:26.000 Well, I really appreciate that.

00:52:28.000 I'll be praying for him as well as all our other troops.

00:52:30.000 So thank you very much, man.

00:52:31.000 Appreciate it.

00:52:32.000 Thank you, sir.

00:52:32.000 I really appreciate you doing this.

00:52:34.000 I know you.

00:52:34.000 Guys, thanks so much for tuning in.

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Triggered - Donald Trump Jr - March 23, 2026

Schoolhouse Shock: Attorney John Manly on the Terrifying Abuse Epidemic Inside Public Schools | Triggered Ep.327

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