Schoolhouse Shock: Attorney John Manly on the Terrifying Abuse Epidemic Inside Public Schools | Triggered Ep.327
Attorney John Manly exposes a sexual abuse epidemic in U.S. public schools, citing studies where 10% to 17% of K-12 students face misconduct. He details California's "passing the trash" practice, exemplified by Mark Burnt, who received $160,000 and full retirement despite feeding children semen in cookies, while unions shield staff from firing or registries. Manly argues that without federal mandates for parent notification and Title IX enforcement, vulnerable Latino and Black children in low-income districts remain unprotected against a crisis fueled by political barriers to accountability. [Automatically generated summary]
Hey guys, and welcome to another huge episode of Triggered.
And today is going to be an especially important show because we're doing a deep dive into the massive scandal happening inside school districts across the country, but specifically in California, where teachers committing abuse against students are basically getting a free pass protected by the unions and left-wing power centers.
And one attorney is taking this fight head on, and he'll be here to lay it all out.
You've probably heard a little bit about the story where it's become basically impossible, like virtually impossible, to fire bad teachers, even ones who commit illegal acts.
It's a really big deal.
It's why our students are underperforming so terribly across the globe and relative to the rest of the world.
And we're going to shine a spotlight on all of it today.
If you guys know about it, if you make some noise, if you make a big stink, maybe, just maybe, we can actually get rid of bad teachers and get competent ones to take their place.
And maybe, if all of that happens, our children have a shot at the future they deserve.
So today is going to be a really interesting show.
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And guys, it's just months and just a few months, really.
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Guys, joining me now is attorney and victim right advocate John Manley.
John, welcome to the program.
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
I appreciate it.
Well, it's great to have you on as a first-time guest.
So maybe just to start, could you introduce yourself to the audience and lay out how your work standing up for victims has put you in the national spotlight and why this really matters now more than ever?
Sure.
I'm not a trial lawyer or a plaintiff lawyer by training.
I'm actually a real estate lawyer.
I represented real estate developers for years and years and years.
And I've dealt with those types quite a bit before I took on this new world.
Suspect.
But me, not you.
Yeah.
But what ended up happening is one of our business clients had a child that was molested by somebody, and we took the case and got a record result in 2001.
And my phone just exploded initially with cases involving religious institutions, other child care institutions.
But in 2012, we got a case involving a public school.
And up until that time, you could not sue a public school in California.
We got the law changed.
How is that even possible?
Well, it's actually the case in most states.
There's what is called sovereign immunity.
So you can't sue the government.
Even if the school knows that, for example, the teacher is a pedophile and they let them stay, you can't sue them except under a very limited federal statute where the statute of limitations is very, very short.
So there's no accountability, no culpability for this before, I guess, these cases?
In most states, the answer is no.
Schools have total immunity in many states.
Now, not California.
Like I said, we were able to get the law changed.
And when I first started doing these cases, I would say if this happened in a public school, there would be retribution.
I just had no idea of the magnitude of this.
And so as time went on and it began to get worse and worse and worse, I started to look into it.
And what I found is that it's an epidemic.
The federal government, both in 2004, the Department of Education, and 2017, in December of 17, the Department of Justice determined in two studies that 10% of students in K-12 public schools in this country will suffer some sort of sexual misconduct by teachers.
Did you say 10%?
I said 10%.
I mean, that's millions of kids.
There's 57 million kids in public schools in this country.
And so you have 5.7 million a year that will suffer some set of sexual misconduct.
I want to be clear, not all of it's molestation, but it has a gamut ranging from inappropriate sexual talk all the way to rape.
And even if it was half that or a quarter of that, even if it's 1%.
So can you imagine?
I'm saying one child, but yeah.
Yeah, one child.
Can you imagine if 10% of flight attendants in this country were turned out to be child molesterers or pick a profession, what would happen?
But yet here we have institutionalized protections of teachers, largely through teachers unions and school districts and what I call the public education sort of machine that engages in protection.
And it's important to understand here that schools are nor is anybody else, any other corporation liable if somebody molests a child.
The only reason they can be civilly liable for damages is if we can prove that the school knew or had reason to know this person was a perpetrator.
So you see millions of dollars in settlements, in some cases billions over, you know, over in states, and it's because they knew and did nothing.
Now, these are not college students.
That's bad enough.
These are not adult women.
That's bad enough.
These are children, little children, kindergartners, third graders, sixth graders, adolescents from four to three to 17.
Proving Civil Liability for Schools00:15:25
And so, you know, the good news is we thought in California and a few other states, they passed statutory windows to address this.
And so we were able to lift the statute limitations on some of these older cases and go after the institutions that allowed this to occur.
And what's happened now is there are certain elements in California's political establishment that are getting pressure from teachers, from joint powers authorities, which are these public entities that sort of operate the insurance apparatus for schools, and teachers' unions that are trying to shut this down.
Moreover, they're opposing any kind of real reform.
And it's political.
And it's not Republican.
It's not Democrat.
It's just wrong.
So that's the background.
Well, I mean, if you're able to change the law in California, I can't imagine this not being like a 99-1 issue that everyone in the country would agree on, except for portions of it, probably the radical left who are sort of okay with all of these insanities.
And obviously they control the teachers' union.
So it may not be political, but the reality is the teachers' union probably hasn't donated to a Republican in decades.
They're one of the largest fundraising apparati for the, you know, for the Democrat Party.
So I imagine it's still concentrated that way.
The issue itself may not be political, but clearly the teachers' unions are and have been for a long time.
How do we not?
I mean, it feels like this is something you can get in front of Congress.
And I can't imagine that congressman holding their seat for very long if they don't vote for this.
Well, it's funny you say that because the bill opening a statute of limitations passed unanimously.
Every member of the legislature in California voted for it.
That never happens.
They wouldn't vote for the 4th of July unanimously.
In California, they'd probably vote against it.
But yes, I understand what you're saying.
But what's strange is it's an interesting dichotomy.
We have a Democrat state senator named Perez who is a left-wing Democrat, but courageously put a bill in to actually establish real reform.
The teachers' union not only opposed it, they withdrew her support for her.
And we have, you know, so it's it's just, it's beyond me that we have, you know, a speaker of the assembly, for example, Speaker Rebus, who refuses to meet with survivors of public schools.
We asked him repeatedly, won't do it.
Why?
And I think, sadly, I think you've hit the nail on the head.
I want to be clear.
This is not every Democrat, but this is certain Democrats who just are, I think, care more about politics than children.
And I don't understand for the life of me how a teachers union, the first job of a teacher, the first job of any of us is to stand between somebody who hurt a child and do our job.
We got to stand between them.
And they won't.
They oppose any type of legitimate reform.
They oppose mandatory reporting.
Imagine an organization that's supposed to help us educate our kids and is the largest teacher organization in the country.
The American Federation of Teachers, the National Educational Association, the California Federation of Teachers.
And they oppose mandatory reporting when you suspect a child is being sexually abused.
What?
And that's what we're dealing with.
So I'm hoping that we can get people to pay attention to this.
And we certainly have some attention in Congress.
We had, you know, over time, we've had a, you know, we've had some success, but it's just, you know, when you meet these families of these kids, and the irony is in California, 95% of the victims are Latino and black.
They're all the children that these folks say they want to protect.
And they're all minority kids.
This doesn't happen at Pacific Palisades or Malibu.
It happens in South LA.
It happens in Pacoima.
It happens in the Central Valley.
So it's just maddening that we're at this point.
And the hypocrisy is staggering.
Well, I mean, I know your firm's been in the trenches on this now for years, and you've called what's happening in California public schools an epidemic, which at, you know, 10%, you know, 5.7 million kids facing some sort of, you know, sexual abuse.
I mean, I don't know what's much more of an epidemic than that.
And I know, you know, again, that's not a word you throw around lightly.
For people who are just hearing about this for the first time, you know, the number, 5.7 million kids potentially affected throughout the country.
I mean, that's insane to me.
I mean, that honestly, you know, it's an issue I suspected, but it's not something I was even all that much aware of until even some of my team sort of saw what you were doing and were like, hey, man, this is like an issue we have to highlight.
In terms of the actual scale, man, I can't think of a bigger issue.
I mean, this seems like something that we should be able to go to any congressman in any district in the country and just be able to say, hey, why don't you run with this legislation?
If you got 100% of the California legislature to vote for it, who wouldn't vote for it?
Well, I think that that's true.
It reminds me a lot of the USA gymnastics case where I was the lead counsel.
And when the Senate and the House got wind of that, they put in legislation and your father signed it in his first term.
So I think the answer is they don't know.
I think people hear this and they think it's some crazy plaintiff attorney in California spewing BS.
These are not my statistics.
This is the U.S. Justice Department in the Bush administration and the U.S. Justice, I'm sorry, the Department of Education in the second Bush administration and the Department of Justice in the Obama administration.
And the woman who authored those studies has subsequently written a book.
It was published in December of 24 by Harvard, not known as a bastion of right-wing thinking.
And she now believes it's 17%.
Yeah, I was going to ask you because it sounds like the data I was reading about in sort of prepping for this is it suggests up to 17% of public school students nationally will experience or witness sexual misconduct by school personnel.
17%.
I mean, again, if it was 1%, it's too much.
If it was one student, I think that's too much.
But up to 17% through sort of, again, data published by Harvard, to your point, not exactly a bastion of right-wing thought.
Walk us through that number because that's just wild.
It's based on data she's collected.
She's a PhD and was at Hofster for many years.
I forget where she is now, but she's a well-respected scholar and not somebody who has a political bent at all.
She's just an academic.
And, you know, I can just tell you empirically, I see this accelerating.
I've been doing it a long time.
I've been doing 30 years.
And I don't know why it's accelerating, but it is.
But what's really troubling is not the fact that it's troubling that anybody would be a pedophile in a school.
But that's where pedophiles go.
They go to youth organizations.
And, you know, pedophiles.
Like when you ask the bank robbers, why are you rob banks?
Because that's where the money is, I guess.
That's where the dough is.
Right.
So here, what's really disturbing is the total indifference and worse, in many instances, institutional concealment of this.
Okay, for example, in LA Unified, there's two administrators that were convicted of failing to report a sex abuse case.
Convicted, sentenced.
They still work there.
In fact, they've been promoted.
You know, there's an LAUSD has an assignment agreement, an agreement with the union where you get reassigned If you've, among other things, if you've been, you've sexually abused somebody, okay, there's a reassignment.
But guess what?
The parents in the class where they think the kid was molested don't get notified.
There is not a single law in this country that requires that parents be notified if their teacher was removed for credible allegations of abuse.
The Catholic Church even has that rule.
The Catholic bishops has the rule.
If they remove a priest, since 2002, this has been a rule.
If they remove a priest for credible allegations of abuse, they notify the public and the parishes.
In public schools, they don't do that.
So why?
Yeah.
Sorry, Don.
You've used the phrase like, you know, basically passing the trash to describe what happens when a teacher or staff member is accused of abuse.
And again, instead of being fired, instead of being prosecuted, instead of being in jail where they belong, they just get quietly reassigned to another school, another district where they can go and do it again.
How widespread is that practice?
I mean, again, these numbers are staggering, but maybe there's no way to track it because if they're not reporting it, they just sort of do it and hope no one catches it again.
Tell these people, don't do it again.
I have a feeling that doesn't happen with pedophiles.
But what's the framework that's allowing that to happen?
Just because there's no central list.
You can't go in any state and find a central list of teachers convicted of pedophilia or remove for pedophilia, whether they're convicted or not.
You don't have to be convicted to remove.
If you did it, you should lose your job.
It's impossible because of the unions to fire them.
But the answer is moving a teacher who's been accused of sexual misconduct with a kid to a new school is commonplace in many districts.
It's commonplace.
And we have instances where somebody's been removed for horrible stuff and they get a letter of recommendation and they go teach in another school.
So the states cannot do this on their own.
In my opinion, there should be two things that happen here.
One is committee hearings in the Senate or House on this, where we actually take evidence so the American public can see it.
And secondly, that the Department of Justice and the Department of Education use their tools, which they have, to go after this.
And I'm hoping they'll do that.
But I see these families, I see these kids.
And the thing I find in, and I want to be clear, not every teacher is a perpetrator.
The heroes in our cases are teachers.
They usually report and usually they get run over when they report.
Well, that's what I was going to ask.
I mean, it's sort of like you're seeing with the fraud allegations in California and in Minnesota.
The whistleblowers actually were the ones that faced accountability.
They were blackballed.
They were fired.
They were not promoted.
They were given crappy jobs for pointing out what was clearly obviously happening.
But just that squeaky wheel in that case didn't get the oil.
It got the exact opposite.
Yeah.
No, that's what happens.
And I can think of a case involving this teacher in South LA named Martin Burnt, who did things that are just so bad to children, I can't even say it.
And there was one teacher, this young woman who was right out of Berkeley, who wanted to teach in a Title I school in a poor neighborhood for altruistic reasons.
And he was exposing himself to the kids.
And she reported it.
And she was basically run out of the school.
So, you know, I just think that, you know, this is the only institution that I have encountered and I know of where if you don't send your kid there, you go to jail.
This is not like church or the Boy Scouts or anything else where they're volunteer organizations.
If you don't send your kid to school, you go to prison.
So, you know, we're in this situation where this is in desperate need of attention.
I mean, you've said, I mean, sort of just said it now, but that, you know, basically firing a teacher in most of these states is next to impossible and that districts often just actually pay them to go away, probably often with that letter of recommendation.
You know, how does a parent hear that and not lose their mind?
You know, what kind of grassroots support do you have from parents?
Because I mean, it does feel like, again, this is such a sensitive issue affecting so many people.
I can't imagine a single parent that would be okay with this in any way, shape, or form.
You know, how is it that even someone like me who sort of does this for a living at this point, you know, doesn't understand anywhere near the depths of this issue.
I mean, I figure, hey, I understand incompetence.
I understand they promote teachers who don't teach well and they've got tenure.
You know, fine, that's all terrible.
Your children are losing out on an education.
That's disastrous for their life.
But this is so much beyond that.
And yet it's almost, you know, again, if I don't know about it, I can't imagine all that many people really understand the depth of the depravity there.
Well, let me take that in two sections.
You talked about teachers being paid.
So I mentioned this guy, Mark Burnt, who was this teacher in LA.
He was basically, and this is a true trigger warning for your audience.
So if you're children listening, turn your computer off or whatever is a radio.
I don't know.
I'm 61.
Who knows?
Let's put the volume off for a couple seconds here.
Thank you.
He was putting his semen in Oreo cookies and feeding it to kids.
And he did this for years.
There are four or five hundred victims at this point.
And he was arrested.
He was charged with this.
And they knew he did it.
He got paid $160,000 and got a full retirement.
How is that possible?
But if you were I did that, I mean, we'd be in jail.
How does a teacher get special protections that no citizen would, you know, would be on a sex offender's watch list without question?
I mean, and rightfully so.
And I don't even understand.
He's in jail, but they paid him anyway.
He's in jail for the rest of his life.
He's convicted.
So he's convicted of the crime and he doesn't lose his rights to those monies?
That's insane.
It's insane.
In most states, that's the case.
California, after that, we were helping, the law was changed.
But still, I mean, what do you have to do to get fired?
You know, we're going to settle with you.
We're going to pay you.
You know, this is, we're living in crazy town with this, and that's the truth.
And I just, you, you, you stare at this and you look at this.
And, you know, for example, LAUSD, the Los Angeles Unified School District, New York City schools, they, they pay these claims.
They're all done in executive session.
The Insane Reality of Firing Teachers00:14:55
So it's all in secret.
There's never been a public hearing on this.
If you ask them how many teachers they know of that have been credibly accused of abuse, they won't give it to you.
If you request...
So you can't even like FOIA that?
No, I...
I've gotten nothing.
They won't give it to you.
In fact, earlier this month, earlier this year, two months ago, I sent a FOIA request in California.
It's called the California Public Records Act to every school district in the state, almost 1,300 districts.
You know how documents I've gotten?
Three, three pages.
I've gotten, I'm not giving it to you.
Your regard, the thing is too broad.
They're hiding it and they're hiding it because if they tell the truth, the political reaction will be massive and it should be.
So I hope, I hope that parents are listening to this go to their schools and say, you know, in their school, their school officials and say, how many children, how many people do you know of that have taught here in the last 10 or 15 years have abused kids?
And watch the rats scurry for the rail.
That should be like the number one thing they should have to answer, let alone, you know, not the number one thing they're able to hide from the public.
I mean, that's insane.
And rest assured, after, you know, after this is done, I'm going to send this to every congressman I know to be like, hey, by the way, like, what the hell?
I mean, this seems like an easy win that everyone in America would like.
Yeah, every, every member of Congress should be on this.
Are there any that have been actually, you know, on the forefront of trying to actually do something?
Or is it, you know, sort of the usual congressional lip service?
In fairness, I just started trying to get down that aisle.
And the only person that's been supportive, interestingly, when he was still a Republican, was Mr. Kiley.
So, you know, and he was the chairman of a subcommittee.
I think that I know there's plenty that will be.
I mean, we had, when we were dealing with the Nasser case, we had bipartisan support on this.
And I do believe there are Democrats out there who, if they understood the magnitude of this, would deal with it.
I just don't think people know.
And if they hear it from a lawyer, perhaps justifiably, they don't believe it, but they don't need to listen to me.
They can go to the federal government's own statistics and just, you know, every day in the paper, there's something new.
There's a new one all over the country.
And it needs to stop.
And I think all of us who are, you know, you're in a position, I'm in a position as a lawyer.
We all have an obligation to try to protect kids.
And especially when we're forcing them to go to this place where they're supposed to be protected.
The irony about school shootings is rightfully, we've, you know, we've hardened schools, we put gates around them.
Think about what that's like, though, if there's a perpetrator in the school.
You've put the children in the lion cage.
Yeah, no, it's that it's crazy.
Okay, well, I'm going to definitely do that.
But let's talk a little bit more about teachers' unions, John.
I mean, you've been very direct in saying that the unions are helping protect obviously abusive teachers, resisting mandatory reporting.
How exactly and why exactly are the unions enabling this?
I mean, again, I get it.
I understand what they are.
I'm certainly no fan of a teachers' union.
I've probably said publicly, I think they've probably held back our kids academically more than any other institution or whatever in this country.
I think they've generally been a disaster.
But why would they protect an abusive teacher?
What's the upside for them?
Is it just that teacher pays dues and therefore we got to go to the mattress for them?
It feels like if there was anyone with any common sense in there whatsoever, and I'm not saying there are, that they would be like, okay, yeah, no, that's someone we're willing just to scrap and send off to jail.
Yeah.
First of all, I'm not against unions.
I was a member of the IBEW when I was a guy in college and the retail clerks union.
And I think unions have a role in our society.
But these unions have lost their way.
They are led by people who truly don't, in my opinion, don't care about children.
And I'm not judging their character.
I'm just telling you the result of what they're doing.
No, that's pretty clear.
If you listen to their commentary during COVID and what, you know, they didn't want to teach.
They didn't want to do remote classes.
They wanted to get paid in full.
And it was like, well, what are we paying you to do?
To not teach and not do remote work?
It's like, I too would love to take a year off or whatever it may be.
It's not your job.
It doesn't work that way.
I think that teachers, if you know teachers who are there for the right reasons, it's a hard job.
And we're looking now in California.
They're expecting 40% of teachers to leave their positions in the next 10 years.
They get no support from administration.
Kids beat them up and nobody does a thing.
I think the problem is that it's cultural in that the unions, the school boards, a lot of administrators look at children as a funding mechanism, not as God's little human being.
Yeah, and I believe one of the teachers unions heads.
I think I read a quote in the book.
Somebody, you know, I think the quote was something to the effect of, I'll start worrying about children when they start paying union dues.
Yeah, that's the guy who used to be head of the union in New York, whose name escapes me.
But yeah, I've seen that quote too.
And to be honest, it sort of moves out that way.
What kind of organization steps up and defends somebody who puts semen in kids' cookies?
And they're third graders, third graders.
And we're going to negotiate on his behalf.
Are you serious?
Corporations don't have to defend criminals who engage in criminal activity.
Why are they?
Yeah, and I'm sure that school could have easily used that six-figure payout for something within that school, maybe to help those children rather than give this guy who's sitting in jail a nest egg, which I'm not sure what he does with, but probably leaves it to heirs if he has them.
That's crazy.
The thing that's important to understand about Los Angeles and New York in these Title I schools, and for your audience, Title I schools are basically schools that have kids that are in a low economic range, have low test scores, et cetera.
And they get a lot of federal money and a lot of attention.
And on back to school night in those schools, the highest paid person in the room is the teacher.
And in Latino culture, I can tell you they respect it.
The maescrow and maestro have tremendous respect.
And these folks have taken advantage of it, almost to the point, by the way, of threatening to call what used to call ICE.
If you don't do this or do that, I want to call ICE.
And so you've got a lot of parents that are scared.
And then the other piece of this is in Palisades or Malibu or the Upper East Side, the lowest paid person on back to school night, the highest, the lowest paid person on back to school night is the teacher.
And you don't see it there because parents in those neighborhoods, they have power, they have education, they have resources, and these folks don't.
And what you see is districts placing these bad apples in these schools, like the school I mentioned earlier, Miramont Elementary, it's in South LA.
You can't go out there at night, you can't.
And it's incredibly dangerous.
And they kept this guy there knewing exactly what he was doing.
So, I mean, in part because of your work, California lifted the statute of limitations on sex abuse lawsuits, which was obviously the right thing to do.
But still, even some California Democrats, again, tried to push a bill that would have essentially reinstated the statute of limitations, essentially slamming the door shut on future victims.
How do they even get away with it?
I mean, it feels like if you're going to do this publicly in California, this is going to be written into law.
How can you have your name shutting off that statute, slamming that door on those victims and still win elected office?
I can't imagine that being possible.
It's worse than that.
They not only wanted to shut it down, they wanted to eliminate or cap their ability to get damages.
At one point, they proposed a fund, a quote, a fund like 9-11.
If you have to have a fund to pay little children that have been molested, you have a massive problem in public schools.
So, you know, the governor has not taken a position on this.
His staff actually did meet with us, but he vetoed a bill that would have allowed children who were molested in juvenile halls to file cases.
So I don't know where he stands, but I don't know if I'm sure you saw it that Cesar Chavez has been disclosed to have molested 13-year-old girls in the last 48 hours, which is sad and hard to believe.
And the same people that were trying to advocate to kill the ability of children in public schools to make claims are out talking about how we support survivors, we love them, blah, blah, blah.
And the hypocrisy there is just staggering.
So as a country, we need to really look at our public education institution, public education system, and say there's something really broken here when 10 to 17% of kids are subject to this.
Yeah, no, again, I thought it was broken when they graduate a lot of kids in some of these, I guess, Title I areas that can't read or do basic math.
They still get their high school diploma.
I thought that was disgusting, but this is crazy.
And again, given how difficult it is to figure out the reporting, if you're saying 10% that we know of, I imagine the number has to be much higher.
You just, you'd never actually know.
I mean, that's what I'm trying.
If they can prove 10%, imagine what they can't prove or haven't been able to, or haven't even tried to prove yet.
Yeah.
Well, that's the thing.
A lot of people in this area think it's higher who study in this area.
You know, they're they're, you know, when your eyes start to roll back in your head when you, when you, in your head, when you think about the magnitude of this and the impact, you know, when this happens to a kid, you know, all of us have the right to choose our first sexual experience.
And when that's stolen from you in third grade and this, this old gross guy who's a teacher molests your kid and molests you, and that's your first sexual experience, it impacts your entire life.
It effectively is emotional murder.
And so you have this, if those are really the statistics, think about the sort of exponential effect that's going to have on society.
And, you know, I can tell you from representing these people, they don't want to go back to school.
It affects their ability to learn.
It affects their ability to make a living.
And prisons are filled with people this happened to, not just in schools, but other places.
Oh, yeah, that's just the first domino, you know, in a lifelong disaster, basically.
Yeah.
So, yeah, I just, I think government's first job is to protect the vulnerable in society and, you know, protect the most vulnerable, our citizens.
And this is certainly in that category.
Yeah.
So, John, you know, we're covered the fraud that's been uncovered in California in the home and hospice industry and the massive amounts of spending that just disappears off into the ether.
You know, the California Teachers Association is one of the biggest political spenders in the state.
They pour millions into Democrat campaigns every cycle.
That's probably the case nationally as well.
And now those same Democrat politicians are the ones who'd have to basically hold the unions accountable for protecting predators.
It seems like a pretty big hurdle to overcome.
But, you know, what are the hurdles to accountability when the money flows so very clearly the way it does?
Well, I think that you have to have politicians with courage.
And there are Democrats out there who have been courageous and said, I don't care what the teachers' union says, I'm voting for it.
So, but there's not enough of them.
I would think we need a governor who takes the lead on this and says, you know, I want to run for president.
I'm going to disclose this.
You know, his wife is a survivor.
Horrible.
You know, for God's sakes, say something.
This is wrong.
These are kids.
They're kids in your schools that you're the head of.
The superintendent of public instruction, say something.
Our attorney general actually has done some stuff.
He's actually sued districts and trying to act.
Rob Bonta, who's a Democrat, but we have a few Democratic legislators who actually listened to us and helped us kill this bill, but largely they won't even meet with us.
They won't meet with these children of their parents.
They wouldn't meet with me.
I'm not saying he's doing that, by the way.
I'm saying that he's been, he signed the bill and I give him credit for it, but he's been absolutely silent on this effort to stop children from filing suits.
And again, it's not, you have to prove that the school knew.
We're not saying, hey, if you're molested, you get a bunch of money from the government, even they didn't do anything wrong.
That's not it.
You have to show they knew.
And if your kid goes to school and the school knows that there's a child rapist in the classroom and they do nothing.
Or another school knowingly puts them into a different school or different school district.
I mean, it's sort of the same thing, right?
Amen.
And so I just don't get it and I don't understand it.
I don't understand how anybody who claims to, who's a parent, who's a grandparent, who's a human being, allows this to continue to go on, especially somebody who's in the education business.
Yeah, you know, it's wild.
I mean, I'm shocked to actually hear all this stuff.
I mean, but, you know, John, you know, you have said that you want Congress, the Department of Education, the DOJ to step in and address this crisis at the federal level.
You know, in your mind, you know, what specifically needs to happen there?
Because I feel like that's perhaps a place you get a little bit more traction than certainly with Democrat legislatures.
Sure.
Using Title IX to Investigate00:07:01
So first of all, Title IX, which the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights runs, gives the Department of Education wide latitude to investigate this and to oppose sanctions.
For example, in the Nasser case, when Secretary DeVos was there, they imposed a huge fine on Michigan State for its handling on Nasser.
I would think it was over a million dollars.
That was the U.S. gymnastics case where the coach was like molesting the athletes.
It was the doctor.
Yeah.
And that was our case.
I represented the Olympians in that case.
And so we had bipartisan support to reform there.
But Title IX, most people think it applies to colleges, but they don't understand it.
It actually applies also to every K-12 public school that gets federal money in the United States, which is all of them.
So, and I can tell you, when we take depositions in these cases and we try them, nobody complies with Title IX in these schools.
If you say, who's your Title IX rep, which every school is supposed to have, nine times out of 10, they won't know.
There's widespread noncompliance.
So in these districts where this is a massive problem, the Department of Education could go in and take action and fine them.
And by the way, the power includes totally eliminating federal money if they don't comply.
It's a huge hammer.
The Justice Department has a role in that They can file lawsuits against districts for violating civil rights.
I mean, bodily integrity and not being raped by your teacher seems pretty fundamental to me.
And I know that there's been some interest in the Justice Department and looking at this.
But I think the biggest problem we, and there's also a role for Congress, which is, for God's sakes, hold hearings on this.
You know, we hold hearings on everything under the sun, and yet we've got this massive problem in our country, and no one's holding a hearing on it.
So I, and what really changed Americans' minds in the Olympic context was the Senate hearings where those gymnasts testified, where Simone Biles and Allie Raisman and Michaela Maroney testified and told their stories.
So those are some of the steps.
I also think that the Department of Education could issue regulations that says, look, if you don't announce to parents when a teacher is removed for credible allegations, you don't get federal money.
You know, we do that in a lot of areas.
For example, the reason, you know, when I was 18, I could drink in Washington, D.C. You can't do that anymore.
And the reason for that is that Elizabeth Dole, who was the Secretary of Transportation, basically said to states, if you don't make your drinking age 21, you don't get federal highway funds.
So the cabinet officials have a lot of power to do these things and impose this on states.
And, you know, normally I'm not a big proponent of federal government imposing anything on anybody.
But here, I think it's warranted because they won't do it themselves.
And this is not just a blue state problem.
There's big problems in red states too, for the same reasons of teachers' unions.
I guess, you know, you mentioned it a little bit, you know, earlier on, but on a personal note, what really led you to take up this fight in this area of law?
I mean, obviously, it wasn't your expertise, but you sort of got all, you got involved, and it seems like you sort of went all in, which I thank you for.
Yeah, I think it was two things.
Number one, the first person I sued, the first perpetrator I sued, happened to be the principal of my high school.
Now, he didn't molest me, but it turns out he molested a bunch of my friends.
And so that had a profound effect on me.
And I was mad.
You know, I'm not a, you know, I'm not a, I don't know.
I don't know how to describe it.
I just got mad.
And I think my dad's from Iowa, and I was sort of raised with sort of Midwestern common sense.
And I just got upset.
And what I've been able to do is put together a group of people.
Most of our lawyers at this point are firmer sex crimes prosecutors.
And, you know, I just think that, you know, there's no gray here.
And I like that.
It's almost like being a prosecutor, but working outside of government.
And I think our work has changed things.
And, you know, if you, you have, I have four kids, I know you have kids, and you think about what a third grader looks like, and you put that, you know, you think about the first day of school and you pack that kid off and you entrust them with people.
You know, the schools are supposed to behave like parents.
The standard is in loco parentis, in the place of the parent.
And if they're not doing that and worse, they're allowing this to happen.
We need to get them.
We need to, they're worse than the perpetrator, in my opinion.
And almost nobody's prosecuted for it.
It's crazy.
John, you know, where can people learn more about what you're doing?
You know, I tell people, you know, hey, like, share, subscribe.
You know, send this one to your Congress person, your senators, even your state legislatures.
Like, if there's ever an episode that you send to someone in state government, hey, what are you doing about this?
It's this.
But where can people go to learn more?
Well, I think there's a couple places.
One about the issue itself is the Center for Defense of Freedom has an excellent article on passing the trash that I think lays out the problem very succinctly.
The National Center for Victims of Crime, their website is excellent.
Our firm is www.manlystewart.com.
We have a lot of information on there.
But I think just, you know, and for example, the Justice Department's study is from, if you search, you know, U.S. Department of Justice, K through 12 school employee sexual misconduct, it'll come right up and you can read it.
The thing I would tell people is that if you suspect this, call the police.
Don't, you know, first call should not be to the school.
The first call, if your child comes home and you suspect that something's happened to your child, call the police.
And sadly, you know, then talk to the school.
But, you know, the problem here is that what's happening in these cases is them when you reasonably suspect that a child's been molested as a teacher administrator, your job is to report.
And instead of reporting, they investigate themselves.
Yeah.
Right.
Well, usually people who investigate themselves don't find themselves guilty.
That's just been my experience.
No, I think that's fair.
Well, you know, guys, you know, check out all those things.
You know, share this one with your government elected officials.
Call the Police Immediately00:01:21
It's a really big one.
John Manley, thank you very much for joining us.
You know, again, I'll contact my team.
Let me know what I can do to help.
But I can assure you, I'm going to be doing the same thing because this is absolutely insane.
But really appreciate the time and thanks for the work that you're doing.
My pleasure.
And also, I want to tell you, my son's a Marine officer.
So I pray for your dad and I pray for your family.
Well, I really appreciate that.
I'll be praying for him as well as all our other troops.
So thank you very much, man.
Appreciate it.
Thank you, sir.
I really appreciate you doing this.
I know you.
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