Since an undercover video went viral of the Cos Cob School assistant principal who appeared to speak about his discriminatory hiring of teachers, numerous investigations have been launched.
The school district announced they would investigate. State education officials are investigating as well.
There is also a civil rights investigation underway by Attorney General William Tong’s office.
And there is an investigation by the Town of Greenwich.
The latter was on the agenda of Thursday’s Board of Selectmen meeting. The two Republicans voted to approve the hiring of Day Pitney LLP; the Democratic Select Person Janet Stone McGuigan abstained.
Barbara Shellenberg whose firm Marino Zabel & Schellenberg has a contract with the town, appeared before the board Thursday, urging them to vote as soon as possible to approve retaining Day Pitney LLP in order to move forward with the town’s independent investigation.
Schellenberg said there was one caveat.
An attorney at that law firm is providing and may continue to provide advice to Brunswick School in connection with the school’s legal action against Greenwich over its decision to collect property tax on 15 residential properties the school uses for faculty housing.
“The firm has asked that the town consent to that continued representation while also representing the town, and wave any conflicts that may arise there from,” Schellenberg said, adding that she had been assured that the two matters were unrelated, and that the attorneys who would be conducting the investigation for the town had no involvement with Brunswick School.
She noted that Day Pitney was not the lead attorney for the Brunswick’s pending tax appeals. She said Cummings & Lockwood would have the court appearance.
First Selectman Camillo said he did not see any conflict.
“We don’t want too much time to lapse between the incident and the investigation,” he added.
After Republicans Camillo and Selectwoman Lauren Rabin voted to approve the motion, Democratic Select Person Ms Stone McGuigan abstained, saying she would have preferred to have more time to consider the situation.
The motion carried.
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The panoply of investigations continues to expand.
The State Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities – CHRO – announced that they voted to launch an investigation into possible discrimination in the hiring of teachers by Greenwich Schools.
CHRO, whose mission is to promote equality and justice for all people, said in a release, “The investigation was called in response to a hidden-camera video published by Project Veritas in which a Greenwich assistant principal appeared to state he would not hire people based on their age and religious affiliation.”
CHRO is the nation’s oldest government civil rights agency and enforces the state’s civil rights laws including those that prohibit discrimination in hiring because of either age or religion. This unique mission allows them to investigate and bring complaints of discrimination on behalf of the State of Connecticut.
The Commission has broad investigative and enforcement powers whenever it has reason to believe there is discrimination in the state.
“These tools will help ensure that, if any bias in recruiting and hiring teachers based on their protected classes is discovered, an enforcement action is brought before tribunals authorized to hear discrimination claims,” CHRO said in a release.
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