A girl tells her teacher that she was raped.  The Principal and Superintendent have not reported as required by law.  The expel the rape victim and fire the teacher, and charge her with misconduct for failing to follow the chain of command by teaching Native Americans their history and culture.  

        My case is now before the N.D. Supreme Court with orals scheduled for September 9^th, 2008, with arguments to be heard at 9:30.  The issues are whether or not I committed misconduct in teaching at Warwick School, whether I was wrongfully denied Unemployment benefits, whether I had due process and a fair hearing.

            In September of 2006, an Indian girl announced to me during 9^th grade art class, that she had been raped, and that she tried to kill herself.  I reported this to Superintendent  and Principal.  Supt assured me I had done the right thing, and that he would handle it from there.

            His way of handling it was by staging a fight to justify expelling the rape and suicide victim, a girl on and IEP.   He then brought in another girl to take the place of the rape victim.  Superintendent and Principal began retaliating against me by manipulating my classes, causing discipline problems for me, and giving me low evaluation scores.

            When I discovered late December that the administrators had not reported the rape, I reported to proper authorities.  When the Supt. discovered I had reported, he immediately fired me on January 4, 2007.  Realizing he had just committed an illegal firing, he immediately called me back to teach, on the condition that I do not talk to the fake “rape” girl, do not talk to anyone about this, and follow his chain of command, in which he insisted I could not talk to the school board.  He questioned the fake girl, who said that she had not been raped and that I had made the whole thing up for attention.

I wrote a detailed report to every school board member, detailing how students were being manipulated, and that administrators had not reported a rape as required.  The school board totally ignored my letter, and refused to meet with me.

Instead, the school board approved a Non-renewal Hearing, in which my contract was not renewed for the following year.  I chose not to attend this meeting because I knew it would be a witch hunt, intended to cover up the real problems.  The tribal president wrote a letter to the superintendent demanding that he remove me because I was teaching Lakota rather than Dakota.  (Slap your forehead!)

I filed a Complaint with the ND State Board of Education, and wrote a letter to the sheriff.  When the Supt learned I had done this, he immediately called the school board for an emergency meeting for the sole purpose of firing me.  I was not notified of this meeting.  I was fired on April 11, 2007, before the end of my contract, and told not to return to my classroom.  I asked for the reason, but I was not given one.  I asked for the school policy, and was told, there wasn’t any.

I filed for unemployment, and was denied, based solely on employer information, that I had not obeyed his orders.  In hearing, Job Service could find no evidence that supported misconduct, other than inadmissible hear-say.  The lawyer for Warwick School claimed that the Non-renewal hearing could substitute for the Dismissal hearing, and therefore, since I had chosen not to go to the Non-renewal hearing, he insisted I had waived my rights.  I claimed that I had only followed the law by reporting a rape, and that I had been fired without due process.  Job Service decided that I had committed misconduct by failing to follow chain of command.

I could not find any N.D. lawyer to take on a lawsuit.  ACLU, Legal Services, and individual lawyers all turned me down.  I could not find any authority to pursue the law against retaliation.  I could not find any authority to investigate the Administrator’s failure to report a rape and subsequent retaliation against me for having reported, not the sheriff, states attorney, attorney General, or even the N.D. State Department of Education.

The rape victim was not allowed to return to school.  Later, summer of 07, she was assaulted and severely battered by the tribal president’s daughter, 29 years old, who beat the rape victim while her boyfriend smashed  a beer bottle over the 16 year old girl’s head.  I reported this to Social Services, the States Attorney, the sheriff, both senators,  the attorney general, and the FBI.  They all claimed there was nothing they could do about it because it happened on the Spirit Lake Reservation.  Apparently, officials do not have to investigate rape crimes if it happens on the reservation and if the rapist is related to a high ranking official.  Blame it on the teacher instead, which is exactly what they all did.

By trying to find justice for poor Indian rape victims, my teaching career has been ruined, and sexual abuse takes place as usual on the reservation, and the poor girls have to suffer in silence, scared for the rest of their lives.  I do not know what happened to the girl.  She has disappeared, and no one wants to talk to me. 

Without any due process, I was fired from my teaching job, charged with misconduct;  all accomplished without a hearing, without evidence, without any opportunity for rebuttal.  With a charge of misconduct, I discovered I could not be hired, not even as a substitute.  I am not only out of a salary for last year, I am out of teaching for the rest of my life.  And, on top, Job Service has refused me unemployment, and told I must go to work and earn so much money before I can be considered eligible for Unemployment.

The Superintendent has forbidden students to draw anything Indian, such as I did when I was teaching.  Is it a form of abuse to withhold true knowledge of  history and culture to Native Americans?  That ought to be a question before the American public when it comes to education.

Because no North Dakota lawyer was willing to take on the case, I have not been able to file a lawsuit.  Instead, I got caught up with Job Service and unemployment.  The district court rubberstamped the misconduct decision.  I appealed to the ND Supreme Court, who accepted the case and will hear oral arguments on September 9, 2008, at 9:30am.  I asked a lawyer friend of mine, Barry Bachrach, if he would argue my case.  He agreed if I would pay his expenses.