Kevin Jennings, the hand-picked director of Obama's Department of Education’s Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools and founder of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, is under increasing scrutiny for his casual (but illegal and morally repugnant) acceptance in the late 1980's of a homosexual affair between an adult and a minor. In fact, he continued in subsequent years to boast of how he handled the matter.How he dealt with it, by the way, was simply to tell the student to be sure and use a condom.
Jake Tapper does an ABC story here that contains what you would expect: minced apologies heavy with self-justification, laudatory testimonials of Jennings from all the leftist educational groups, and an emphasis that the opposition to Jennings comes only from conservative groups -- as if the majority of Americans wouldn't be upset with Jennings had a fair press openly reported the facts about him.
However, there is one interesting element of Tapper's story.
Diane Lenning, head of the NEA’s Republican Educators Caucus, protested Jennings being honored by the liberal National Education Association back in the summer of 2004 when they gave Jennings the Virginia Uribe Human Rights Award. Lenning claimed that because Jennings “did not report sexual victimization of a student to the proper authorities." (He had spoken of the incident on many occasions and it was also spelled out in a book he had written). She asked "Is it a good idea for NEA to honor as exemplary a teacher who engages in unethical practice?"
Jennings took the posture of an outraged victim of anti-gay hysteria then, saying that the “comments and accusations made by Diane Lenning regarding my career while I served as a teacher at Concord Academy were not only personally hurtful but inaccurate and potentially libelous."
Well, because greater attention is being given now to his past record, Jennings is singing a different tune.
Jennings issued a statement yesterday saying, “Twenty-one years later I can see how I should have handled the situation differently. I should have asked for more information and consulted legal or medical authorities. Teachers back then had little training and guidance about this kind of thing. All teachers should have a basic level of preparedness. I would like to see the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools play a bigger role in helping to prepare teachers.”
I mentioned Jennings last Tuesday and linked to the Family Research Council which has tried to draw attention to this matter. I encourage you again to check out the FRC's action alert to see how best to raise your voice in behalf of the genuine safety of America's students.
