On Wednesday afternoon, after Greenwich Schools announced that the administrator portrayed in a viral video from Project Veritas talking about not wanting to hire Catholics or people over 30, had been placed on administrative leave by Greenwich Schools Superintendent Dr. Toni Jones, Governor Ned Lamont released a statement about hiring practices at local school districts, saying, “Discrimination of any kind has no place in Connecticut, especially in our public schools. This is not aligned with our Connecticut values.”
“The Connecticut State Dept of Education is aware of the incident, has been in contact with Greenwich Public School administrators, and is monitoring the situation’s progress,” he added.
In a follow up statement, Greenwich DTC chair Joe Angland said, “The viral video of secretly-recorded conversations with an assistant principal at Cos Cob School is extremely troubling, in that it appears to show that he used discriminatory hiring practices to exclude conservatives, Catholics, and older teachers from teaching in our schools in order to enhance the likelihood that teachers would convey a liberal, Democratic message.”
“Discrimination of the sort suggested by the video would be a disservice to our students by excluding some highly qualified applicants for teaching positions,” Angland added.
“The Democratic Party celebrates diversity and openness, and it would run contrary to its core principles to discriminate on the basis of political ideology, religion, or age.”
Angland urged against a rush to judgement.
“The source of the clandestinely-created video is Project Veritas, an organization with a reputation for using misleading editing and other devices to distort what a speaker really said. Project Veritas’s questionable record, however, does not mean that this particular video is misleading. Should it turn out to be substantially accurate, the practices described by the assistant principal are reprehensible – and ironically, anti-Democratic.”
In addition to his comment on Facebook Tuesday night (previously published on GFP) Fred Camillo, Greenwich’s First Selectman, shared a statement saying he had directed the Town Attorney to proceed with an independent investigation into this matter.
“The Board of Education represents the largest cost center in our Town’s operating budget and the taxpayers of Greenwich expect that those that work on behalf of the Town of Greenwich and the Greenwich Board of Education do so with the highest standards of ethics, transparency and integrity.”
See also:
Cos Cob School Assistant Principal Placed on Administrative Leave
Project Veritas Targets Greenwich Schools with “Gotcha” Video