Kevin Jennings Must Go

This morning, a friend of mine said to me, "Andy, I read your post from the other night, and I thought, 'there has got to be more to this". My friend couldn't believe that a teacher wouldn't report a student who told him that student had been raped. He also couldn't believe that teacher would be selected to be the Safe Schools Czar. I have been looking into this since Monday, and my friend is right, there is more to the story. However, the "more to the story" paints a darker picture than I described on Monday.

In case you didn't read my post from Monday, Kevin Jennings is the Safe Schools Czar. According to the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, this job is charged with providing, "…financial assistance for drug and violence prevention activities and activities that promote the health and well being of students…"{emphasis mine}. Kevin Jennings was a teacher when a 15 year old male student came to him and said that a man had picked him up at a bus stop restroom and took him home to have sex with him. Mr. Jennings advice to the student was to use a condom. This isn't an allegation. We know this from Mr. Jennings own words in an audio tape from a rally where Kevin Jennings spoke to the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). When another teacher pointed out that Kevin broke the law because he didn't report the event out to the authorities, Mr. Jennings threatened to sue the teacher in court.

After my post on Monday, I found out more details about Kevin Jennings. In 1990, he founded GLSEN, the organization he bragged to about telling the 15 year old boy to use a condom with the man picking him up. GLSEN has been accused of promoting homosexuality in schools. It's one thing to teach that kids shouldn't be bullied because of their differences. It is another thing entirely to have a conference were officials instruct students on the proper use of "fisting". According to Fox News, one official at the conference said, "[fisting] gets a bad rap…[It's] an experience of letting somebody into your body that you want to be that close and intimate with…[and] to put you into an exploratory mode." Quoting Fox News further:

"From what I've heard, I have concerns as well." Jennings told the Boston Globe in May 2000."GLSEN believes that children do have a right to accurate, safer sex education, but this needs to be delivered in an age-appropriate and sensitive manner."

"What troubles me is the people who have the tape [of this event] know what our missions is, they know that our work is about preventing harassment and they know that session was not the totality of what was offered at a conference with over 50 sessions," he said.

The fact that this was offered to children at all is totally inappropriate. The rest of the sessions could have been entirely innocent. This one session outweighs the others.

According to Jennings, GLSEN's mission would be achieved if straight people decided it was ok for someone to promote homosexuality in schools because by then homosexuality wouldn't be equated with something bad that shouldn't be promoted. In this situation we had a sophomore in high school who was getting picked up by an adult male to have sex. Mr. Jennings couldn't see past his own activism to protect the child or to comply with the law.

Mr. Jennings has no credibility that he can distance himself from his own personal politics in order to make informed decisions about school age children. How can parents trust any decision his office has anything to do with? Mr. Jennings shouldn't' have a presidentially appointed position; he should be awaiting his day in court for failure to report statuary rape that he knew was taking place. President Obama should ask for Mr. Jennings resignation and answer some hard questions. Is this behavior acceptable to the President? Did the President vet Mr. Jennings? Did he know about this, or did he think this was acceptable behavior from a teacher?

Would You Trust Kevin with Your Children?

Today's Washington Times carries a story that should worry every parent. I admit the story is an editorial, but it is an editorial because it calls for action from President Obama.

Imagine a local teacher, we will call him Kevin, is approached by a 15 year old male student. The student tells Mr. Kevin that he has been having sex with an older man. None of the stories I have read explain what prompted the boy to approach Mr. Kevin. What would you expect the teacher to do? Should Kevin tell the boys parents? Should he report the statutory rape to the police? Should Kevin, as a teacher and concerned adult, try to protect the boy and tell him to come forward in order to protect other kids? Maybe the student should go home, ask for his parents help, and together go to the police. No, Kevin decided that this situation required a very different approach.

According to the Times,"… in a new audiotape discovered by Fox News, the 15-year-old boy met the "older man" in a "bus station bathroom" and was taken to the older man's home that night." When faced with this difficult situation, Kevin told the student to use a condom. Kevin would later write a book an state that he,"… allayed the student's concerns about the relationship to such a degree that the 15-year-old 'left my office with a smile on his face that I would see every time I saw him on the campus for the next two years, until he graduated." Kevin Jennings would see the student for another two years. For two years he would think not of what he should have told the boy, or that the boy should report this sexual predator to the police. Instead, Kevin would think of this boy as success because what he was doing was ok and because Kevin had told the student to use a condom.

Mr. Jennings would brag about his actions to a chapter of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network. According to the Times, this is a group that promotes Homosexuality in schools. One could accuse Kevin Jennings of simply pandering to the crowd. Of course how would you explain the quote from his book? And then there is the nasty case of how he handled it when a teacher suggested he may have broken the law. He threatened to sue the teacher in court.

Don't worry about Kevin Jennings. President Obama was so impressed with him; Kevin Jennings is now the Safe Schools Czar. The man who told a worried 15 year old student that he should just wear a condom, is now in charge of ensuring all schools across the nation are safe for your children. There are no details of what happened to the 15 year old boy. We can only hope someone who knew the difference between right and wrong was able to help the boy.

I am personally disgusted by this story. Words don't convey how much the actions of Kevin Jennings disturb me. Kevin Jennings should be fired immediately. No one who shows this kind of judgement should have a job in any Presidential administration, let alone a position affecting schools and school age children. Additionally, local authorities should be given the information and should investigate possible charges. Finally, President Obama should use his next Prime Time news conference (I am sure there is one coming up) to apologize to parents across the country.