On Thursday CT Attorney General William Tong announced he had invoked his civil rights enforcement authority to investigate any potentially illegal discrimination or other actionable misconduct related to the video that appeared to contain troubling, discriminatory statements that appear to have been made by a Greenwich public school official.
“Yesterday, most of us saw for the first time a video that appears to contain troubling, discriminatory statements that appear to have been made by a Greenwich public school official,” Tong said in a release. “Today, I am invoking my civil rights enforcement authority to investigate any potentially illegal discrimination or other actionable misconduct related to that video.”
Tong added that discrimination, hate, bigotry against any person, and against any religion or on the basis of age, is reprehensible.
“The video is disturbing, and if teachers, school staff, or applicants for education jobs have been illegally discriminated against for any reason, I will take action,” he said.
“As your Attorney General, I will exercise my civil rights authority to protect people in Connecticut who are subjected to illegal discrimination, just as I have protected Connecticut’s immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, and others subjected to discrimination and deprivation of rights,” he added.
Tong said he does not play politics with his enforcement authority, his civil rights investigations or when it comes to Connecticut’s schools, students, and teachers.
“That means I am going to run this investigation by the book and according to our standard procedure for investigations,” he continued, adding that he would not rush to judgement, and would respect due process.
“I am not going to do anything different just because it is a political season and people want to see me reach one conclusion or another.
He said his office planned to conduct a thorough investigation, and review and analyze all the evidence. He said although that would not happen overnight, they would get to the bottom of the incident and hold accountable anyone engaged in actionable misconduct.
If anyone believes they have been the victim of discrimination—at Cos Cob School or elsewhere Tong said he wanted to know. Anyone can report to him via dir.ct.gov/ag/complaint or by calling 860-808-5410.