Earlier this week I wrote about the two Minnesota teachers who had taken a leave of absence after Anoka-Hennepin School District paid $25,000 to settle the lawsuit brought by 15-year-old student Alex Merritt. You’ll recall that the lawsuit was brought against the teachers because the teachers used gay slurs against Merritt.
Now, Diane Cleveland — one of the teachers who had been disciplined for harassing Merritt — is denying any wrongdoing:
“She does not in any way acknowledge harassing anybody,” said Phil Villaume, the attorney for teacher Diane Cleveland.
. . . [although] the [school district] investigation found that Cleveland violated three school board policies, as well as the code of ethics for Minnesota teachers, which is written into state statute. . . . The district also put a strongly worded “letter of deficiency” in her personnel file.
“The object of your teasing, jokes and comments felt victimized, humiliated and discriminated against,” read the letter, from Ginny Karbowski, who directs the program where Cleveland teaches. “… Your actions have had a detrimental impact upon the students, the STEP program, and the entire school district.”
On top of this, several students corroborated Merrit’s version of what happened.
More information on Walter Filson — also accused of using gay slurs against Merritt — is not yet available.
17. October 2009 at 3:27 pm
teacher Diane Cleveland. This person and all like her, should not be allowed to teach at all. She should have all of her licence’s for teaching any thing in any type of situation revoked.. revoked…
She should have to re do her learning and retake the test before she is allowed to get her licence back. Seems like she is in the dark ages of teaching..
I would not have my kids attend her classes at all. she showed me how not to be and i would have my kids understand what not to be when they are growing up and become an adult. (she is a prime example of this)
its a sad day when we have persons teaching our kids this demeaning, prejudice way of thinking and looking at some one’s different life style.
thank all theres no budest person’s in that school
9. November 2009 at 11:23 pm
Diane Cleveland is a very talented and undiscriminating teacher. I happen to know this because she was a teacher of mine for 2 years. During these two years i did not once see her showing any signs of discrimination or harmful actions against gays or any minority for that matter. When i heard about this case, i was amazed. Amazed at the fact that some modern-day “civilized” people can be so inconsiderate and money-hungry. For a while i toyed with the thought that Alex Merritt’s mother, the “victim”s parent was simply trying to help and support her child in his time of need. But after about 2 minutes of looking over the facts, you would have to be extremely incompetent, naive, and blind not to realize that the mother is simply in it for money. What parent trying to protect her child from embarrassement would make a public case out of him? What kind of parent supposedly looking for justice would accept MONEY – A $25000 SETTLEMENT to drop the case? I know if it was me, i would want JUSTICE not money! It makes me sick to think that there are people in this world that do things like this for a thing such as money. Alex Merritt will now live the rest of his life as “that kid” because his mother saw this case and decided she could take OUR TAXPAYER MONEY for her gain. What makes it worse is the fact that 2 very talented teacher’s careers are at stake because of it. With education becoming less and less in the U.S., we need as many good teachers as we can get. If you ask me, we should be focusing more on disciplining people who make up fake lawsuits and steal OUR TAXPAYER MONEY, and less on good teachers that are simply trying to do their job.