Posted on 08/04/2021 12:33:25 PM PDT by servo1969
Nicole Solas is the South Kingstown, Rhode Island, mother who gained national attention when she told her story at Legal Insurrection regarding her stymied efforts to obtain school records regarding teaching of Critical Race and Gender theory, I'm A Mom Seeking Records Of Critical Race and Gender Curriculum, Now The School Committee May Sue To Stop Me.
We have followed Solas' story since the beginning:
Solas has had dozens of national media appearances, and has continued to make news in Rhode Island and nationally. I expect that news cycle will continue because Solas was just sued by the Rhode Island branches of the largest teachers union in the country, the National Education Association, trying to prevent South Kingstown from providing Solas with information she has requested, including communications involving the union or its members.
You can read the full Complaint with exhibits (pdf.), filed in Rhode Island Superior Court, at the bottom of this post. Legal Insurrection is the first to report on the lawsuit.
We will add additional analysis and commentary to this post. My initial take is that this smells collusive. South Kingstown doesn't want to produce records and the union is helping them out. The lawsuit purports to prevent disclosure of "private" information, but the public records laws and Solas' requests pursuant to those laws only require the district to produce public records. The district has been very aggressive in asserting exemptions and redacting documents, so the union's concern and rush to court seems peculiar, at best.
It's worth noting that the South Kingstown NEA previously targeted Solas, as we reported, by holding a special membership meeting singling her out as a danger.
MORE TO FOLLOW
"Ask us for copies of our CRT lesson plans and we'll sue you into oblivion."
How do we help her....PRAYERS for SURE! Teachers in union s are EVIL!
CRT is predatory indoctrination.
I wonder if they have standing. As far as I know, the NEA is a union. It governs working conditions. Naturally it has a charter, which I know nothing about. But I seriously doubt its charter has plenary power over curriculum.
This lawsuit makes little sense on its face. The unions purport to be protecting their members non-public documents and information, but the public records law only applies to "public records" as defined under the statute (emphasis added):
(4) "Public record" or "public records" shall mean all documents, papers, letters, maps, books, tapes, photographs, films, sound recordings, magnetic or other tapes, electronic data processing records, computer stored data (including electronic mail messages, except specifically for any electronic mail messages of or to elected officials with or relating to those they represent and correspondence of or to elected officials in their official capacities), or other material regardless of physical form or characteristics made or received pursuant to law or ordinance or in connection with the transaction of official business by any agency. For the purposes of this chapter, the following records shall not be deemed public:
(A)(I)(a) All records relating to a client/attorney relationship and to a doctor/patient relationship, including all medical information relating to an individual in any files.
(b) Personnel and other personal individually identifiable records otherwise deemed confidential by federal or state law or regulation, or the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 552 et seq.; provided, however, with respect to employees, and employees of contractors and subcontractors working on public works projects that are required to be listed as certified payrolls, the name, gross salary, salary range, total cost of paid fringe benefits, gross amount received in overtime, and any other remuneration in addition to salary, job title, job description, dates of employment and positions held with the state, municipality, or public works contractor or subcontractor on public works projects, employment contract, work location, and/or project, business telephone number, the city or town of residence, and date of termination shall be public. For the purposes of this section "remuneration" shall include any payments received by an employee as a result of termination, or otherwise leaving employment, including, but not limited to, payments for accrued sick and/or vacation time, severance pay, or compensation paid pursuant to a contract buy-out provision.
As described in the Complaint, Solas seeks "public records":
22. The requests include, but are not limited to, requests for records that may relate to labor relations Which do not constitute public records. For example, 0n May 16, 2021, Solas submitted Request N0. 48 Which calls for "digital copies pertaining to the AFL-CIO in the last four months." App. B, p. 1
23. The "AFL-CIO" is an acronym for the American Federation 0f Labor and Congress Industrial Organizations. It is a federation of unions that includes the NEA.
24. Solas also submitted Request N0. 100 Which calls for "digital copies 0f public documents relating t0 Patrick Crowley in the months of March, April, and May 2021." App. B, p. 1.
25. Patrick Crowley is a NEARI employee and Rhode Island AFL-CIO official.
The Complaint alleges a large document production on July 13 by the district, but does not allege that that production included records outside the scope of "public records" under the statute:
45. Based 0n the scope of the requests concerning Savastano's e-mails, upon information and belief, a response would call for communications between teachers Who are NEA members and Savastano that are not public records or would otherwise not be subject t0 disclosure because disclosure would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.
46. On or about July 13, 2021, the Defendant School Committee responded t0 one of the recent APRA requests by releasing a total of about 6,500 pages of documents.
I don't know what those 6,500 pages contained, but if it's anything like what South Kingstown produced to Legal Insurrection Foundation pursuant to our request for records regarding a School Committee statement about Solas, it probably almost entirely redacted based on the exemptions in the statute:
[South Kingstown Letter to Legal Insurrection Foundation asserting exemptions]
[South Kingstown Redaction of Record to Legal Insurrection Foundation]
Another curious item. It seems that the unions are concerned that their actions regarding CRT and Solas will be disclosed by the district (emphasis added):
65. It is anticipated that teacher records will be produced that will be of a personal nature and will contain the identities of the teachers engaged in the personal communication as well as other communications that relate to personnel issues, disciplinary issues, performance issues, medical issues and issues not related t0 the official business of the School Department.
66. It is further anticipated that teacher records will be produced that may or will contain discussions about union-related activities which are not public records subj ect t0 disclosure.
67. It is further anticipated that teacher e-mails will be produced that may or will contain discussions about critical race theory curriculum or other issues 0f "interest" to the requestors that will contain individual teachers' names and personally identifiable information.
70. Given the circumstances 0f the requests, it is likely that any teachers who are identifiable and have engaged in discussions about things like critical race theory will then be the subject of teacher harassment by national conservative groups opposed to critical race theory.
The Rhode Island School Superintendents Association, with help from unions, has sought to amend the public records law, a matter first reported on by Legal Insurrection. Anticipate another push by the unions in light of this lawsuit.
The public schools belong to the PARENTS.
NOT the teachers or the school board, let alone their UNIONS
This appears to be a textbook example of a SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against public Participation)! Unless deep pockets are on your side, an opponent can use the legal system to their advantage until you run out of money, patience, sanity or all three!
It might be fun to sue one of these people for libel when they call us “racist.”
They’re usually careful not to label anyone in particular, but sometimes they can’t help themselves.
Seems odd that anyone requesting public records legally under FOIA can be sued.
Does the NEA pay taxes to provide public schools?
Does the School Board pay taxes to provide public schools?
We learned the Golden Rule in school, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". Then in real life, it changed to "remember the Golden Rule; them that has the gold makes the rules".
She should file a SLAPP lawsuit against the union.
Unless there’s an Anti-SLAPP statute that allows you to put a quick end to the SLAPP suit. About fifteen seconds of googling tells me Rhode Island has one. If it’s anything like the California one you can shut down a SLAPP lawsuit from the git-go, and get attorneys’ fees for your troubles.
No need to file a separate law suit, probably. Typically Anti-SLAPP is done by a motion early in the case.
Anyone in that locale paying taxes for schools has a right to see what they are paying for...this is ridiculous and tells us the CRT is nefarious crap they don’t want parents to see.
Your error is that you forget that our civil legal system is an open door tort system. There is no gate keeper to decide what suits can or cannot proceed. If you have the filing fee or are filing as 'forma pauperis' (status), you obligate / force the opposing party to respond to you. NEA is not, by any means, poor or without resource!
Look at any CRT material, replace the word “white” with “black”, and come back and try to tell us CRT isn’t more racist than an ESPN sermon against white people.
Requires a judicial 'finding' that said suit has that intent, so still needs preliminary resources by the defendant to fight the suit and get the reimbursement for said fees! So it is not as quick or as 'git-go' as it sounds! Then there are the appeals and the politics of the same! Good intentions frequently come up short of deep pockets!
“This lawsuit makes little sense on its face.”
You might be too kind. I couldn’t figure out their basis for relief apart from the idea of “this stuff will make some of us look really bad.”
The records are public, and the lawsuit cites a bunch of exceptions to records being open, but none of those exceptions are even alleged to be present. It should be laughed out of court. Even if it’s not, it should be a political issue going forward. This is outrageous.
Don’t you mean an anti-slapp lawsuit?
It’s still a little confusing to me, but the rule is to keep a larger entity, like the school board, from using the courts to punish an individual for exercising their rights. Slapp stands for “strategic lawsuit against public participation.” That is what the union was threatening to do: file a baseless lawsuit that would not succeed in doing anything other than bankrupting the mother.
Hence it’s the mother who would have the anti-slapp option, but only if they pull the trigger on their threat first. I don’t think you can file a lawsuit against a threat.
NEA needs to lose all federal government funding. Trump will cut them off.
The MAGA Trumpers will not make the same mistakes next round in the Whitehouse.
NEA was the org pushing porn in American libraries in the 90s.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.