JUDGES RULE NYC SCHOOL BOARD OVERREACTED AFTER TWO WOMEN TEACHERS WERE FOUND IN JAMES MADISON HS PARTIALLY UNDRESSED WITH ONE HAVING HER HEAD UP BETWEEN THE LEGS OF THE OTHER

Appellate judges order fired lesbian teachers restored to their jobs because they were consenting adults and no students saw them making whoopee

What could possibly be wrong with one partially undressed teacher having her head up between the legs of another partially undressed teacher in a darkened classroom? Apparently nothing in the eyes of some judges. The appellate division of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan overturned their firing by a stuffy Victorian NYC school board.

COURT ORDERS REHIRING OF 2 BROOKLYN TEACHERS IN MISCONDUCT CASE
By Ariel Kaminer

The New York Times
March 21, 2014

It was a November night in 2009 when Alina Brito, a Spanish teacher at James Madison High School in Brooklyn, and Cindy Mauro, a French teacher there, went out with a colleague to a neighborhood restaurant for dinner, and a cocktail or two.

They returned to watch a student musical performance in the auditorium, but they did not stay long. Before the first intermission, Ms. Brito and Ms. Mauro left the show, walking up two flights to Room 337, a classroom Ms. Mauro often taught in.

“They had left the door to the room unlocked, and the lights were out. What were they doing?” asked a judge in an animated court ruling in 2012.

A custodian heard noises, peered inside and, he said, saw a woman on the floor, topless. He alerted security. A school safety agent then barged into the room, the judge wrote, and “saw a brunette woman (Brito is dark haired) completely naked, lying on the floor” and “a blond woman (Mauro is light haired) also naked on top of the brunette.”

They instantly became the most famous teachers in New York City, winning their school the tabloid nickname of “Horndog High.” But though it all might have sounded like the stuff of overheated high school fantasy, it had some very grown-up consequences: They were fired.

Their case has gone through a series of twists, the latest this week, when an appeals court ruled, more than four years after the episode, that Ms. Brito and Ms. Mauro must be put back on the city’s payroll.

Given that they were consenting adults, that no students were harmed as a result of their actions and that they broke no laws, the appellate division of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan ruled that terminating their employment was “shockingly disproportionate” to the misconduct. Their “behavior demonstrated a lapse in judgment,” it continued, but “there is no evidence that this incident was anything but a one-time mistake.”

The five-judge panel added, “Indeed, lesser penalties have been imposed where a teacher had an ongoing relationship or engaged in inappropriate behavior with a student.”

During the initial arbitration process, Ms. Brito and Ms. Mauro argued that there had been no impropriety whatsoever. Ms. Brito — who had required medical attention in the past — said she was suffering from reactive hypoglycemia, and Ms. Mauro was attending to her by laying her down, getting her sugar packets and elevating her feet, they said. Other than a sweater, which had been repurposed as a pillow for Ms. Brito, they said they were both fully dressed. They lost.

When they appealed their dismissal in court, the judge overseeing Ms. Brito’s case ruled that her offense did not warrant termination. The judge also ruled that Ms. Brito had been deprived of due process, because a surveillance tape showing the hallway outside the classroom, which could have shed light on the witnesses’ account, had been erased.

The judge overseeing Ms. Mauro’s case came to the opposite conclusion, however, upholding the arbitrator’s decision that she should be fired.

Barring an appeal, this week’s ruling, reported Friday by The New York Post, means both teachers’ cases will be sent back to arbitration for a lesser penalty, which could include a reprimand, suspension or fine.

In a statement, the city’s Law Department said lawyers were considering their options.

Both women are off the payroll, though they are likely to receive back pay if the ruling stands. An Education Department spokesman could not say if the teachers would be allowed back into classrooms.

Michael A. Valentin, a lawyer for the women, did not respond to messages left Friday.