Case of Peter Melzer
Yonkers, NY
New York, NY
Former Teacher - The Bronx High School of Science Bronx, NY
Former President - NAMBLA (North American Man-Boy Love Association)
Former Treasurer - NAMBLA (North American Man-Boy Love Association)
Former Editor - NAMBLA (North American Man-Boy Love Association)
Peter Melzer was licensed by the New York State Board of Education in physics and general science at the high school level and in science at the junior high school level. He had been teaching for the Board of Education since 1963, and has taught at the Bronx High
School of Science (Bronx Science) since 1968.
There are several people by the name of Peter Melzer. The individual discussed on this page was born on April 16, 1940.
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Table of Contents
1989
- School Investigations Leave Much to Be Desired (07/131989)
1993
- An Investigation Into Misconduct Relating To Pedophilia By Peter Melzer, A Teacher At The Bronx High School of Science (09/21/1993)
- Dismissal Urged for Teacher With Ties to Child-Sex Group (09/21/1993)
- Ouster urged for teacher in sex probe high school faculty member described as advocate of pedophilia (09/22/1993)
- Teacher Sidelines Cortines urges his dismissal (09/22/1993)
- Board of Ed Pats Backs All Around (09/23/1993)
- How Free Can Teachers' Speech Be? (10/03/1993)
- Weighing a Teacher's Rights (10/09/1993)
- Child molesters love to work where children are (10/11/1993)
- New York Forum About Pedophila: The Troubling Case Against Peter Melzer (10/13/1993)
- Parents Sue Board of Ed (10/29/1993)
- Furor Over Teacher's Desire For Boys The N.y. School Board Wants To Fire Him. He Cites Free Speech Rights. (12/04/1993)
- Teacher seeks right to have sex with boys (12/06/1993)
- N.Y. Pedophile Fights To Save Teaching Job (12/012/1993)
1994
- Pedophiles Rationalizing Irrationality (07/08/1994)
- Men Who Love Boys Explain Themselves (07/08/1994)
- `Chicken Hawk': The Controversy (08/14/1994)
1995
- Film on paedophilia setto provoke uproar (01/29/1995)
- There are good paedophiles and there are bad paedophiles (01/29/1995)
1996
- Where do you draw the line? (04/28/1996)
1998
- House Whip Flays Apple Over Booted BZ. Teacher (06/26/1998)
- The Gospel According To . . . New York Schools Create A Religious Martyr (07/02/1998)
- The Evils of Tenure (10/05/1998)
2002
- Ex-Teacher Lawsuit Dismissed (02/28/2002)
- Melzer v. Board of Education of the City School District of the City of New York (12/03/2002)
2003
- Dismissal Of Schoolteacher Affirmed (0718/2003)
- Justice at a snail's pace (07/19/2003)
Also See:
- Case of Rabbi Dr. Alan Horowitz (NAMBLA Member)
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School Investigations Leave Much to Be Desired
New York Times - July 13, 1989
To the Editor:
A June 16 news article reports that half of the corruption allegations made to the New York City Board of Education last year showed no evidence of having been investigated. If our experience is typical, many of the allegations that do get investigated are investigated poorly or inadequately. The fault may not lie entirely with the Board of Education.
Following the summer of 1987, when the physical-sciences department of our high school experienced a massive theft of computers, audiovisual devices and assorted laboratory equipment, we repeatedly urged our supervisor to report the matter to the appropriate authorities. When it became apparent that our advice had not been heeded, and when additional information surfaced to convince us that collusion or, at best, gross negligence was indicated we approached our principal with our concern. Again, when it became fully apparent that no serious investigation would be initiated, we brought our suspicions to the office of the Inspector General.
We spent considerable energy bringing our complaint to Board of Education headquarters and following up with numerous telephone calls. Yet only the most perfunctory of investigations was performed. The facts clearly indicated wrongdoing, but we were never advised of any disposition of the case.
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An Investigation Into Misconduct Relating To Pedophilia By Peter Melzer, A Teacher At The Bronx High School of Science
City of New York - September 21, 1993
CLICK HERE TO VIEW
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Dismissal Urged for Teacher With Ties to Child-Sex Group
By Selwyn Raab
New York Times - September 22, 1993
A Bronx High School of Science physics teacher who is said to advocate sex between men and boys is unfit to teach and should be dismissed, a New York City investigator urged yesterday.
A report by Edward F. Stancik, the Special Commissioner of Investigation for the New York City school district, asserted that the teacher, Peter Melzer, as an official of the North American Man-Boy Love Association had championed child pornography and child prostitution.
Mr. Melzer has never been accused of a sex-related crime, Mr. Stancik acknowledged. On Monday Mr. Melzer, who had been on a sabbatical, was reassigned from his teaching job to clerical work at a Board of Education office building in Brooklyn.
Describing the charges as "total nonsense," Mr. Melzer, 52, said that in 30 years as a teacher he had never permitted discussions about sex in his class and that no sexual harassment complaint had been filed against him.
First Amendment or Fitness
"It is an insult to our youth that a teacher can be barred from the classroom for what he believes or for whom he privately associates with," Mr. Melzer said in an interview.
Mr. Stancik acknowledged that Mr. Melzer's dismissal could raise questions concerning the infringement of the teacher's First Amendment right to free speech and his membership in the organization.
"We are not saying he should be punished for being a member of Nambla," Mr. Stancik said in an interview. "But we are saying that what he did as a member of Nambla is relevant to judging his fitness as a teacher."
After receiving the report, Ramon C. Cortines, the Schools Chancellor, said he would recommend that the Board of Education begin disciplinary proceedings to dismiss him.
"Though no evidence of misconduct on the job has been presented," Mr. Cortines said in a statement, "Mr. Melzer's advocacy and promotion of illegal activities make him unfit to serve as a classroom role model."
Because Mr. Melzer, who has taught physics at Bronx Science since 1968, is a tenured teacher, a three-member arbitration panel will review the charges against him and impose penalities if it determines he is guilty of misconduct.
Mr. Melzer said Mr. Stancik, who has been the head of the independent investigative agency for three years, was a "publicity hound" and had apparently resuscitated the charges after Mr. Melzer was interviewed about the organization on WNBC-TV last March.
The television appearance, according to Vincent G. Galasso, the principal of Bronx Science, provoked numerous complaints from parents about Mr. Melzer's fitness to teach. In April the school's parent association urged the board to dismiss Mr. Melzer and threatened a boycott of his classes.
Mr. Stancik, in his report, said Mr. Melzer had served for the last 15 years as a high-level official in the organization and had been an editor and had written at least 15 articles for the association's publication, The Bulletin. The articles written or approved by Mr. Melzer, the report claimed, contained advice on how to seduce and sexually abuse children and also endorsed child pornography and child prostitution.
Mr. Melzer denied that he had endorsed illegal acts, maintaining that he had spoken out against child pornography and prostitution.
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Ouster urged for teacher in sex probe high school faculty member described as advocate of pedophilia
By Larry McShane
Associated Press - September 22, 1993
NEW YORK -- For the last decade, Peter Melzer has done two things: taught in the city's public schools and advocated men having sex with boys. A report on a city investigation released Tuesday made it clear that he should quit his teaching job.
The high school science teacher's "enthusiastic championing of pedophilia, including child pornography and prostitution," is enough to warrant his dismissal, the report said. The softest punishment should be permanent removal from the classroom.
"Parents can and do reasonably fear for the safety of their children in Mr. Melzer's care," the report said. "Given that (he) has a professed sexual desire for children . . . and has on at least one occasion indulged his urges, their fears can hardly be surprising."
There was no evidence that Melzer had sex with any of his students, the report concluded.
The investigation revealed that Melzer is a member of the North American Man-Boy Love Association, which promotes sex with underage youths; worked for an association publication that offered tips on seducing boys; and had sex with a youth in the Philippines a decade ago.
Melzer, 53, is on an administrative assignment away from children but remains on the city payroll pending a Board of Education review of the report.
Schools Chancellor Ramon C. Cortines called for quick action to fire Melzer, who had taught for the last 20 years at the Bronx High School of Science. As a tenured teacher, he is entitled to an administrative hearing before dismissal.
Melzer, through his attorney, declined to address the investigators.
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Teacher Sidelines Cortines urges his dismissal
Newsday - September 22, 1993
Schools Chancellor Ramon Cortines yesterday recommended firing a teacher at the prestigious Bronx High School of Science for allegedly engaging in sex with a child in the Philippines and promoting pedophilia as a leader of the North American Man / Boy Love Association.
In what is shaping up as a First Amendment battle, the Board of Education is expected to decide today whether to bring charges against Peter Melzer, a 30-year veteran teacher in the city's public schools. If it does so, as a tenured teacher Melzer would be entitled to an administrative hearing at which the school board could ask for his termination. As of Monday, he was reassigned to a desk job.
The New York Civil Liberties Union may get involved in the case, said its director, Norman Siegel. Government bodies "cannot penalize an employee because of the employee's association with a group that is advocating illegal activities, because mere association is not sufficient grounds," he said.
Edward Stancik, special investigation commissioner for the schools, said that although Melzer hasn't been charged in this country and there are no known cases of Melzer abusing his students, "we feel that anybody who would have any part in giving advice on abusing children has no part in schools."
Stancik's office recommended that Melzer at least be permanently removed from the classroom, and said his activities might warrant dismissal.
But Melzer, a 53-year-old Belgian native, maintains that his removal from the classroom is a violation of his First Amendment right to freedom of speech.
"In all these years, I never gave anybody a hint what my private life was about," he said in a telephone interview from his lawyer's office. "I have the right to associate with people outside of my job. I never mentioned it, not even to my closest colleagues, {in order to} keep my private and work life separate."
A report released yesterday by Stancik quotes liberally from articles in the NAMBLA bulletin describing sexual experiences with children and how to seduce boys. The group advocates legalizing sexual relations between men and boys.
The only testimony suggesting that Melzer has ever had sex with a minor came from an undercover investigator who recalled hearing the teacher tell him 10 years ago that he had had sex with a boy in the Philippines.
Students at Bronx High School of Science were divided by Cortines' recommendation. "I don't think just because of what he believes in, they should kick him out," said Vicky Liu, a 16-year-old senior from Queens. "But maybe if I was a boy, I would feel different."
But Llewellyn Rudy, 16, an 11th-grader from Queens, said "I don't find it to be something I want in my school. If he goes around touching boys, he doesn't have the right to teach."
One parent agreed with Rudy. "He has every right, but he should not be any place where he has access to children," said Karen Garrison of the Bronx. "He's an authority figure and these kids are very impressionable."
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Board of Ed Pats Back All Around
By Liz Willen
Newsday - September 23, 1993
As parents and students throughout the school system continued to tackle asbestos-related delays and confusion, the Board of Education took some time yesterday to congratulate itself for getting the schools open at all.
"We have a lot to be grateful for. Schools are open, children are receiving instruction and we are on the way to what soon will be a normal school year," said Board of Education President Carol Gresser, who issued a five-page statement thanking everyone for their around-the-clock work in getting the school year under way.
But the praise was quickly overshadowed by questions about how long the last 46 schools will remain closed; when cleanup work will begin; and how much time it will take to ease hassles such as closed gyms and bumbled bus routes. "Getting the year off this well has been a major miracle," said a weary Bert Sacks, a top aide to Schools Chancellor Ramon Cortines. Sacks acknowledged that he had been inundated with the "How long?" question and said his staff is looking everywhere to provide classroom space for students and teachers displaced by the asbestos crisis.
Students from schools still shut down are attending classes everywhere from churches to housing projects to the Museum of Natural History and the Bronx Botanical Gardens.
As of yesterday, two high schools and 44 elementary schools remained closed while 72 schools were on adjusted or split schedules. Fourteen special education programs have been relocated.
Several additional schools have been ordered shut since Monday; PS 83 in the Bronx, PS 26 on Staten Island, PS 164 in District 20 and PS 155 in Brooklyn's District 23. School Construction Authority trustee Sandy Frucher said yesterday he has asked the Board of Education to make the cleanup work its top priority. District 18 Superintendent Harvey Garner - the former interim chancellor - said an administrator would be appointed to oversee the cleanup and make sure "it is done objectively with teachers, custodians and parents involved. There will be timelines and clear expectations."
No one could answer the "How long?" question yesterday, but sources said the SCA had asked the Board of Education to close schools to students on Columbus Day, Monday, Oct. 11, for cleanup work and open them instead on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 2. But Gresser said the board did not want to change the calendar again. "Parents are adamant about not wanting children in school on Election Day," she said.
In other action yesterday, the Board of Education voted to bring charges against Peter Melzer, for 30 years a teacher at Bronx High School of Science, who has been accused of being a member of a group that advocates sex between men and boys. Melzer will now be entitled to a series of administrative hearings at which the Board of Education could request termination of his employment.
Jasmin Jourdain, a student representative to the Board of Education who was a student of Melzer's, said she had "mixed emotions" about the board's decision. "He has the right to privacy and there is no evidence that he has ever touched a student or put this in his curriculum." But Jasmin said she sympathized with parents "who want him out."
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How Free Can Teachers' Speech Be?
By Melinda Henneberger
New York Times - October 3, 1993
A PHYSICS teacher at the Bronx High School of Science may lose his job because of his activities in an organization for pedophiles, which school district officials say make him unfit to teach.
But more is at stake than the career of Peter Melzer, a leader of the North American Man-Boy Love Association. The organization is described by a spokesman as a "self-help group for pedophiles tormented by societal conditions" who want to "educate the public at large to the benevolent nature of relationships between men and boys."
Some First Amendment experts say his dismissal could have serious constitutional repercussions, signaling a return to the time when teachers' jobs depended on public approval of their private lives.
Mr. Melzer, 52, stands accused of encouraging child abuse, child pornography and child prostitution in a newsletter published by the group. School district officials last month reassigned him to a desk job outside the school and recommended that he be dismissed, pending the final decision of a disciplinary panel.
Because he has not been accused of misconduct, his case has provoked debate about whether a teacher should be dismissed for something he said or wrote.
And the case has raised enormously difficult questions about where school officials draw the line in protecting both their students' safety and their teachers' constitutional rights.
(Or, in the eyes of more cynical observers, how far the district will go to protect the image of a prestigious school and avoid potential lawsuits. School officials had known about Mr. Melzer's membership in the group since the mid-1980's, but began hearing from angry parents only last March, when he appeared in a television report on the group.)
Edward F. Stancik, Special Commissioner of Investigation for the New York City School District, said his office began looking into Mr. Melzer's activities in May 1992, after a file on the mid-80's investigation surfaced during a review of old cases handled by a now defunct internal investigation office at the school district. Mr. Stancik's office is independent of the district. Name on the Masthead
Articles Mr. Melzer wrote for the newsletter centered on fund-raising and civil rights, not sex, but show his advocacy of the tenets of the group, Mr. Stancik said. And other articles at issue, including several that were unsigned, appeared in editions of the newsletter with Mr. Melzer's name on the masthead, making him at least partly responsible for its content, Mr. Stancik said.
One of those articles offers graphic "tips on how to make that special boy feel good." Another is a memoir by a former camp counselor who fondly recalls having sex with a 9-year-old camper, advises readers on using pornography to seduce a child and recommends travel to countries where laws on child prostitution are lax.
Mr. Melzer opposes laws against sex between children and adults, but he denies promoting law-breaking. And he says that in 31 years in the classroom, he has never mentioned sex or done anything inappropriate.
"I've always been conscious of the propriety of my position," he said. "Not that I agree with the culture, but one has to agree with the terms of the job and you do not use your position as a soapbox -- though many teachers do, by the way, use the classroom to push their views on all kinds of things."
He warns colleagues that if he is dismissed, they could be next under the microscope.
"Anyone who ever spends time in a teachers' lunchroom can hear comments from men and women teachers who are attracted to students," Mr. Melzer said. "If we're going to start examining what everyone's private outlook is, there'll be no one left to teach." No Union Support
Among those who lined up to call for Mr. Melzer's ouster are the officials of his own union.
"Pedophiles do not belong in a classroom with kids," said Ron Davis, a spokesman for the United Federation of Teachers. "It's safe to say some teachers are concerned, purely as a matter of principle, about where you draw the line" in sanctioning off-the-job activities, he said. "But it's the position of the union that this is where you draw the line."
Children's advocates say they are philosophically sensitive to First Amendment concerns but viscerally overwhelmed by the sense that students may be at risk.
And even if Mr. Melzer has never behaved inappropriately with a student, said Jim Cameron, executive director of the Federation on Child Abuse and Neglect in Albany, his now well-known views on sex harmed students by betraying their trust in an authority figure.
Civil libertarians like Norman Siegel, director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, say the First Amendment protects even the most outrageous speech unless it creates a "clear and present danger" of inciting violence or other lawlessness.
Still, there are limits on free speech, especially in the areas of obscenity and libel and slander. And Mr. Stancik maintains that the school district can dismiss Mr. Melzer under the standard set out in a 1987 Supreme Court ruling.
That case involved a county employee in Texas who was dismissed for telling a co-worker that she hoped the next assassination attempt on President Reagan would be successful. The Court held that the county violated the woman's First Amendment rights but said a government employee's statements could be a ground for dismissal if they compromised the agency's functioning.
Calling Mr. Melzer's situation a tough case, several experts in constitutional law agreed only that whether he can be dismissed probably hinges on whether the district can prove that his advocacy compromised the school's functioning or impaired his effectiveness as a teacher.
Even under that standard, Mr. Stancik said, "you'll never have a stronger case than a teacher who writes essentially an instruction manual for child molesters."
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Weighing a Teacher's Rights
By William Glaberson
New York Times - October 9, 1993
It's easy to understand why parents would be upset to have Peter Melzer teaching their children. Mr. Melzer, a physics teacher at the Bronx High School of Science, is also a leader of the North American Man-Boy Love Association. Issues of the group's newsletter, with Mr. Melzer's name on the masthead as officer or editor, have included how-to articles on seducing young boys.
It sounds like any parent's nightmare: a teacher with easy access to youths who openly espouses sex with youths. But there is a big problem with current efforts to remove Mr. Melzer. There is no evidence whatever that he poses any danger, sexual or otherwise, to his students. The case against him rests entirely on views expressed in writing, mostly by others, and on what he may or may not have done years ago in a foreign country. Thus moves by the New York City Board of Education to dismiss him for these articles raise troubling issues of free speech and civil rights.
No one alleges that Mr. Melzer has done anything wrong in his 31 years as a classroom teacher. Nor has he been charged with any violations of law. Indeed, school officials have known about his membership in the Man-Boy Association since the mid-1980's but took no steps to remove him until a televised report in March stimulated parent opposition. But New York City school officials have now moved to dismiss him on the grounds that the views he associates himself with in private life interfere with the proper functioning of a school system.
For the past month Mr. Melzer has been assigned to a desk job. But lawyers for the teachers' union argue that, in the case of a tenured teacher like Mr. Melzer, such reassignment can only be temporary unless formal charges are brought. A disciplinary panel will now hear the case.
There's no denying that dismissing Mr. Melzer for articles other people wrote in the Man-Boy newsletter would constitute a form of governmental punishment of legally protected speech. But even so, dismissal might withstand constitutional scrutiny. The courts do not treat the First Amendment as an absolute license, and recent decisions have begun to chart out an explicit exception based on proper functioning of governmental institutions.
The idea of returning Mr. Melzer to the classroom troubles us. But the idea of dismissing a tenured teacher with an apparently sound record because of views expressed outside the classroom troubles us more. Without evidence of illegal acts or classroom misconduct there's no clear way to distinguish Mr. Melzer's case from others involving politically unpopular views or unconventional life styles. Would exemplary teachers who happen to be homosexual, or who espouse anarchist views outside the classroom, be next?
Mr. Melzer's views are as repugnant to us as to many parents. But three decades of teaching without complaint and an expressed willingness to follow societal norms in his role as a teacher provide no basis for denying Mr. Melzer his civil rights.
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Child molesters love to work where children are
By John Leo
Orlando Sentinel - October 11, 1993
New York's Channel 4 News showed some footage last March of a pedophile group having a quiet chat in the busy atrium of the Citicorp building in midtown Manhattan.
The pedophiles were all members of NAMBLA, the 1,000-member North American Man/Boy Love Association, which wants the law to allow adults to have sex with children.
Unaware he was being taped, one member of the group, a public school teacher, urged another, a public school librarian, to keep his membership secret until he has tenure. A third NAMBLA member interviewed by Channel 4 turned out to be a former public school psychologist who had worked with emotionally and physically handicapped children at a Queens elementary school.
John Miller, the WNBC-TV correspondent who broke the story, said recently: "We thought these guys were people who lurk around outside schools. What we found was, they lurk around INSIDE the schools."
Lurking may not be the right word. There's no evidence yet of NAMBLA members preying on children in city schools, though at least two local members have been convicted of sex offenses. But Miller has a point. Child molesters don't just hang around playgrounds. They apply for jobs at schools, camps, the Boy Scouts, Big Brothers, YMCAs. "Boy lovers" love to work where the boys are.
So far the effort to haul the pedophiles out of the youth system isn't going all that well, as the current NAMBLA story in New York shows. For six months there was virtually no newspaper coverage.
The press also ignored the spreading story of parental protests about Peter Melzer, 53, the teacher on the WNBC-TV tape who advised the librarian to lie low. Melzer teaches physics and science at one of the city's elite schools, the Bronx High School of Science. He is on NAMBLA's steering committee and the editorial board of the NAMBLA Bulletin, which has offered advice on how to entice children into sex. ("Leave a pornographic magazine someplace where he's sure to find it.")
The New York City Board of Education has known since 1984 that Melzer was a pedophile. "It seemed to me that nobody wanted to take responsibility for making a decision," said Edward Stancik, a special investigator for the school system. Three weeks ago, Stancik released a long report recommending Melzer be fired. The former school psychologist and the school librarian are both under investigation now too.
So far, gay and civil liberties groups have been fairly quiet about the Melzer case, now headed for state disciplinary hearings. Melzer is accused of no crime and NAMBLA says he is being persecuted for speech and political beliefs. But even in the absence of a crime, Stancik's report states, "his misconduct in aiding the Bulletin in publishing the advisories for pedophiles . . . makes him unfit to teach children." Yes, that's exactly the point. Leaving a known pedophile in the classroom would be quite a statement about the values of public education.
Melzer, by the way, is a regular delegate to an annual international conference of pedophiles and pederasts. Call it a sexual version of the Predators' Ball. To folks at NAMBLA, it's important to make sex with children look legitimate. David Finkelhor, a sex researcher on the faculty of the University of New Hampshire, calls NAMBLA "the intellectual elite of child molesting." Most people who prey on children don't bother much about theory, but NAMBLA types feel driven to rationalize what they do. So they have cobbled together a credo out of the gassier rhetoric of victim groups and the children's rights movement.
We are told that man-boy lovers are yet another oppressed group, that NAMBLA is seeking "the empowerment of youth" and sexual self-determination for children, who are being exploited by parents who treat them as property.
This is a corruption of language as well as morals, but it is taken very seriously in some quarters. Since the '70s, at least, one strain of thought in journals of sex research has upheld some of the principles of what might be called child molesters' lib: All children are sexual beings from birth; some children do not suffer from adult-child sex; it's sometimes better to have sex from adults than no love at all; and every sexual taboo must be analyzed pro and con, including incest and adult-child sex.
Pedophiles have made some headway in politics as well as the world of sexology. NAMBLA is a member of the International Lesbian and Gay Association, which has called on members "to treat all sexual minorities with respect," including pedophiles. Though a great many lesbians and gays detest NAMBLA, the group has been allowed to march in gay parades in New York and San Francisco under its own banner.
Is there a creeping tolerance? I notice that John DeCecco of San Francisco State University, editor of the Journal of Homosexuality, is also on the board of Paidika, a Dutch pedophile journal. When I asked him why, he said, "They needed a psychologist." No. They "need" respectability, and DeCecco is providing some. The culture is now so soft-minded that many will listen to any self-styled victim group, perhaps even pedophiles. That's why it's crucial to keep them out of the schools.
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New York Forum About Pedophila: The Troubling Case Against Peter Melzer
By Patricia Kean
Newsday - October 13, 1993
If my child were attending the Bronx High School of Science I'd make a simple demand: Keep Peter Melzer, physics teacher and self-proclaimed pedophile, out of the classroom.
Calling for Melzer's dismissal is easy, since pedophilia disgusts almost everyone. But assessing the report on Melzer recently released by Edward F. Stancik, special commissioner of investigations for the New York City school district, proves more difficult. In fact, the Stancik report raises more questions than it answers, and may provide Melzer with plenty of ammunition should he wage a battle to stay in the classroom.
The facts are these. Melzer, a tenured teacher who has been transferred to a desk job pending a final decision on his status, has not, so far as is known, been accused of child abuse during his 30 years in the public schools. But he is a long-standing member of the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), a reprehensible, but legal, organization dedicated to promoting "consensual" sex between men and young boys. Melzer's membership became widely known in March, 1993, when WNBC-TV's John Miller caught him on videotape at a NAMBLA meeting.
If the Bronx Science community was shocked to learn of a teacher's double life, the Board of Education wasn't. It had been aware of Melzer's peculiarities since 1984, when it conducted its own investigation and decided to do nothing. Stancik says that his office received the files from this earlier probe and opened another inquiry in 1992.
The case presents an obvious dilemma: How do you get rid of Melzer without violating his First Amendment rights? The report's answer is to focus on his "public advocacy of pedophilia," as evidenced primarily in his work as a writer and editor of the NAMBLA Bulletin. This approach enables Stancik to argue that Melzer's dismissal can be justified under a Supreme Court ruling that upheld a government agency's right to fire employees whose public speech interferes with its own ability to function.
Certainly, Melzer's return to Bronx Science would cause an uproar. But is it fair to blame his own speech for this? After all, most of Melzer's so-called "public" expression took place in the pages of the NAMBLA Bulletin, a newsletter whose circulation is limited to a small circle of like-minded perverts. Clearly, it was involuntary television exposure - John Miller's "outing" of Melzer on the local news - that finally made his pedophilia a public issue.
While the Stancik report acknowledges the impact of WNBC's broadcasts, it highlights the Bulletin articles. The trouble is that the most nauseating examples - tips on seducing children and advice on "Staying Sane and Happy as a Man/Boy Lover" - are unsigned. The articles under Melzer's byline are fairly innocuous, dealing mainly with cases of alleged discrimination. Yet the investigators rely on Melzer's own articles to establish him as a "public" advocate, and then treat him as though he were the author, not an editor, of more graphic pieces on which his name does not appear.
The report also uses Melzer's private admission - "I am attracted to boys up until the age of 16" (from a letter to a postal inspector posing as a British pedophile pen pal) - to argue that he should not be allowed to teach "young students to whom he has a self-proclaimed sexual attraction."
Pedophilia has nothing to do with homosexuality, as the report takes great pains to point out. But a double standard based on sexual orientation emerges nevertheless. For example, if we apply the criteria set for Melzer to all heterosexual male high-school teachers, we would be forced to conclude that many pose a threat merely because they find certain 15-year-old female students attractive.
Has Melzer ever acted on his unhealthy desires? In the very next line of the letter to the postal inspector, he writes, "Although I disagree with society's views, I am not willing to engage in unlawful acts or use the mails illegally." The only evidence the report can muster to the contrary dates back 10 years and alleges misbehavior on another continent: An undercover cop says that Melzer told him he had once visited an underage prostitute in the Philippines. As "proof," the appendix offers a copy of a letter that establishes only that Melzer attended an educational conference there in 1983.
Curiously, we never hear the voices of the only people who could tell us the facts about Melzer's behavior - his own students. Instead of talking to kids, the investigators resort to dubious exercises such as using old yearbook photos to compare the number of male students involved in extracurricular clubs before and after Melzer became moderator. And though a footnote explains that investigators sought to spare students' feelings and avoid other legal ramifications, Bronx Science teens are hardly unaware of the controversy; a school newsletter even ran articles for and against keeping the teacher on.
There is a simple reason why Peter Melzer must be removed from the classroom, one that is mentioned, but not emphasized, in the Stancik report. New York State law requires all licensed teachers to report any suspected cases of child abuse; teachers must even attend a seminar that helps them recognize less obvious signs of sexual abuse. Because Melzer belongs to a group that believes sex with adults "empowers" children, he is unlikely if not unable to perform one of his most important duties as a teacher. Thus, it is Melzer's membership in NAMBLA, not his articles in its Bulletin, that belongs at the heart of this matter.
And there's evidence that Melzer is not alone. The Stancik report notes that Miller's broadcast also caught another board employee, allegedly a school librarian, at a NAMBLA meeting. But according to the logic of the report, this is no cause for concern since "the other employee appears only to be a member of NAMBLA and has not himself publicly advocated pedophilia."
The irony, of course, is that the more public the pedophile is, the safer the kids are. Many times we are doubly shocked by the sexual abuse of children - first by the nature of the crime, and then by the identity of the abuser. So often the pedophile turns out to be the last person anyone would suspect - a family friend, a priest, a principal - and not a card-carrying member of NAMBLA. Peter Melzer may be the least of parents' worries.
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Parents Sue Board of Ed
By Rose Kim
Newsday - October 29, 1993
Parents who are accusing the Board of Education of allowing teachers who are pedophiles to encourage unlawful sex between men and boys will get their day in court in early November.
A Queens judge has ordered a Nov. 10 hearing on a class-action suit filed last Friday by two Queens mothers, Janet Cole and Zoraida Dooley, on behalf of "boys under 17 who attend New York City public schools" and their parents.
The suit was filed in response to disclosures that Peter Melzer, a physics teacher at the Bronx High School of Science, was newsletter editor for the North American Man / Boy Love Association, which promotes "consensual sex" between men and young boys.
The suit is seeking to require the board to prevent teachers and counselors who are pedophiles from interacting with children. Board of Education spokesman Frank Sobrino declined to comment.
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Furor Over Teacher's Desire For Boys The N.y. School Board Wants To Fire Him. He Cites Free Speech Rights.
BY Terence Samuel
Philadelphia Inquirer - December 4, 1993
NEW YORK — Peter Melzer, 53, has openly admitted that he is sexually "attracted to boys up to the age of about 16."
As a longtime member and leader of the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), Melzer has raised money, written articles and worked for the repeal of laws that forbid sexual relationships between men and boys.
Melzer is also a physics teacher at the Bronx High School of Science.
The New York City Board of Education has said that Melzer - because of his beliefs - is disruptive, dangerous and immoral. It wants to fire him.
"Mr. Melzer's advocacy and promotion of illegal activities make him unfit to serve as a classroom role model," said School Chancellor Ramon Cortines in a call for Melzer's firing at the beginning of the school year.
Melzer, who says that despite his beliefs he has never had sex with boys, contends the attempt to fire him is a violation of his First Amendment rights.
"All my activities have been purely intellectual, solely intellectual," said Melzer. "I think what is at stake is the right of anyone to associate freely, to have a right to think and to have a right to speak freely."
The case raises an intricate set of questions about privacy and free speech, and the boundaries between individual rights and community standards.
Both the American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Times have opined that regardless of the discomfort Melzer's ideas may cause some people he should keep his teaching job.
"Our position is that this is a purely speech issue," said Laura Murray, legislative director of the New York ACLU. "According to the facts of this case he has never engaged in any illegal conduct inside of the classroom or outside. So what it comes down to is that no matter how odious and repugnant the speech, it is protected. Unless they can show conduct or speech advocating this inside the classroom, he has to stay. And I say that as a parent."
Some parents, of course, have very little interest in the First Amendment argument.
"Where are the rights of the parents to protect the children?" asked Joan Levenson, co-president of the Parents' Association of the Bronx High School of Science. "What he is advocating is illegal in all states that I am aware of."
Melzer involvement with NAMBLA became a public issue last spring when a local television news program ran a series of stories on the teacher. The broadcasts caused an outcry among parents and galvanized calls for Melzer's dismissal.
Since his return from a year's sabbatical in September, Melzer has been placed in an administrative position away from the classroom pending the outcome of arbitration in his case.
The case has hit such a nerve that some parents who do not even have children at Bronx Science have filed a class action lawsuit against the school district to prevent Melzer from ever being allowed into the classroom again.
John Hartigan, who represents the parents, said his clients are also asking the court to order the school district to send out a one-page letter to parents of all male students under 17, warning about the danger of pedophilia.
"We are not asking them to fire these people. If they want to keep them on the payroll forever that's fine with us," Hartigan said. "We just don't want them in the same room with children."
Janet Cole, one of the parents who brought the lawsuit, does not see the need for all the discussion.
"If a man states that he enjoys having sex with little boys, something is wrong. . . . Even if he hasn't done it yet, it's only a matter of time before he jumps in there," said Cole. "How could a man who could defile children also teach children? We should expect some protection."
The school board's case against Melzer is contained in a 40-page report by the district's Special Commissioner for Investigations, Edward F. Stancik. The report is primarily a compilation of Melzer's writings and actions on behalf of NAMBLA.
In an effort to establish Melzer's "promotion of pedophilia," Stancik outlined NAMBLA's goals, quoting from its constitution: "The North American Man/Boy Love Association is an organization founded in response to the extreme oppression of men and boys involved in consensual sexual and other relationships with each other. . . . As an immediate goal we call for the adoption of laws that both protect children from unwanted sexual experiences and advances and, at the same time, leave them free to determine the content of their own sexual experience."
In addition to his leadership role on the NAMBLA Steering Committee, Melzer also served as editor of the NAMBLA Bulletin, a bimonthly newsletter for members. Although he is no longer editor, he remains on the Bulletin's staff.
The newsletter typically is a collection of news briefs, feature articles, fiction, self-help articles, testimonials and letters from men who describe themselves as "boy-lovers."
When Philadelphian Edward I. Savitz, who was charged with paying boys for sexual favors, died last March, the Bulletin ran a story on his death.
Every issue is splashed with black-and-white photographs of pre-adolescent boys in various stages of undress.
Melzer, who described himself in an interview as "an admirer of the English language," has written a number of articles for the Bulletin on such topics as fund-raising, police infiltration of the organization and NAMBLA members who have been jailed or charged for sexual crimes.
He wrote about his own "15 minutes of fame" when he was confronted by a local television reporter earlier this year.
Melzer said that even though he is listed as one of the officers of the Bulletin, he does not control what appears in the publication.
Melzer said that even if he did, it has no bearing on his work as a teacher.
"I have never made that an issue of this. Never," he said. "Not even with co-workers."
Melzer, a Belgian native who immigrated to the United States with his parents at 11, still speaks English with the precise diction of one who has acquired the language. With a slight paunch, a thinning hairline and heavy, black-rimmed spectacles, he easily looks the part of a high school physics teacher.
While he professes optimism that he will get his job back, Melzer said that what he mostly feels is anger.
"I really feel incensed by this whole situation," said Melzer. "I have done the right thing. I have never done or said anything in any shape way or form to make kids feel uncomfortable in the classroom. . . . I have never used my position to influence kids in any way, and you have a fair amount of power as a teacher."
He shrugs off those who all him sick or perverted.
"History is full of that type of reaction when people are dealing with something that they don't understand, or when it's been distorted for them," he said.
". . . It is the same kind of response that 50 years ago people had about a black teacher in a white school. They have said the same thing about communists, Catholics, Jews, any number of people," said Eugene Nathanson, Melzer's attorney.
It is an argument that doesn't sit well with those who oppose his presence in the classroom.
"There is a huge difference between justified discrimination and unjustified discrimination. We differentiate between people, justifiably, if their conduct poses a danger to others. Being Jewish does not create a danger to anybody, being black does not create a danger to anybody," said Hartigan, the lawyer for the parents.
While he understands why parents are concerned, Melzer says they have no need to be.
Melzer and Nathanson said Melzer was no more a threat to his students than a responsible male heterosexual teacher would be to female students.
"He is a professional," said Nathanson, "He understands that he has no business getting involved with the students."
For now, Melzer only wants to return to the classrooms of Bronx Science. He has spent more than half his life at the school, first as a student, then, for the last 25 years, as a teacher.
"It's a little sentimental," he said. "This is where I belong."
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Teacher seeks right to have sex with boys
By Terence Samuel
The Ottawa Citizen - December 6, 1993
NEW YORK -- Peter Melzer, 53, has openly admitted he is sexually "attracted to boys up to the age of about 16.
As a longtime member and leader of the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), Melzer has raised money, written articles and worked for the repeal of laws that forbid sexual relationships between men and boys.
Melzer is also a physics teacher at the Bronx High School of Science.
The New York City Board of Education has said that Melzer -- because of his beliefs -- is disruptive, dangerous and immoral. They want to fire him.
"Mr. Melzer's advocacy and promotion of illegal activities make him unfit to serve as a classroom role model, said School Chancellor Ramon Cortines in a call for Melzer's firing at the beginning of the school year.
Mezer, who says that despite his beliefs he has never had sex with boys, contends the attempt to fire him is a violation of his 1st Amendment rights.
"All my activities have been purely intellectual, solely intellectual, said Melzer. "I think what is at stake is the right of anyone to associate freely, to have a right to think and to have a right to speak freely.
The case raises an intricate set of questions about privacy and free speech, and the boundaries between individual rights and community standards.
Both the American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Times have opined that regardless of the discomfort Melzer's ideas may cause some people he should keep his teaching job.
"Our position is that this is a purely speech issue, said Laura Murray, legislative director of the New York ACLU. "According to the facts of this case he has never engaged in any illegal conduct inside of the classroom or outside. So what it comes down to is that no matter how odious and repugnant the speech, it is protected. Unless they can show conduct or speech advocating this inside the classroom, he has to stay. And I say that as a parent.
Some parents, of course, have very little interest in the First Amendment argument.
"Where are the rights of the parents to protect the children? asked Joan Levenson, co-president of the Parents' Association of the Bronx High School of Science. "What he is advocating is illegal in all states that I am aware of.
Melzer's involvement with NAMBLA became a public issue last spring when a local television news program ran a series of stories on the teacher. The broadcasts caused an outcry among parents and galvanized calls for Melzer's dismissal.
Since his return from a year's sabbatical in September, Melzer has been placed in an administrative position away from the classroom pending the outcome of arbitration in his case.
The case has hit such a nerve that some parents who do not even have children at Bronx Science have filed a class-action lawsuit against the school district to keep Melzer out of the classroom.
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Controversy Focuses on NYU Student's Film
By Matthew Flamm
Newsday - July 4, 1994
 |
| Adi Sidman - Director of "Chicken Hawk" |
According to Adi Sideman, the director of "Chicken Hawk: Men Who Love Boys," he was just doing his homework. The New York University film major never expected that his shot-on-a-shoestring video portrait of four members of the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) would arouse such concern. He certainly didn't expect demonstrations of the kind the anti-gay group Straight Kids USA has planned for the documentary's invitational premiere Wednesday at Cinema Village in Manhattan. "We're having a rally that will be anti-NAMBLA but pro-the movie," says Tom McDonough, Straight Kids USA's 47-year-old founder. "We feel everybody should see this movie because it exposes NAMBLA for all the evil they are."
NAMBLA members will also show up: They like the 55-minute documentary just as much as McDonough. "It shows feelings that are non-exploitative, that are positive, affirming the value of young people," says Leland Stevenson, a NAMBLA spokesman featured in the film, which will begin its two-week public run Friday.
It all started two years ago, with a sociology class Sideman was taking in which the professor mentioned the pro-pedophilia group, which was founded in 1978 and now claims 1,500 members.
"This was my third week in New York," Sideman, a 23-year-old Israeli citizen, recalls in an interview in his Lower East Side loft. "I couldn't believe it existed. I thought, 'This is very new, very out there.' "
Sideman gained access to the organization by calling its New York hot line and was six months into filming when WNBC / 4 broke the story that Bronx Science physics teacher Peter Melzer was a NAMBLA member. (At one point, Sideman and his cameraman were in Melzer's apartment when WNBC's John Miller was downstairs trying to get an interview.)
Says Sideman, "We were just film students doing our homework."
There are some who argue that he didn't do enough of it. Two NYU professors whom Sideman thanked in the closing credits asked that their names be taken off the film.
"Almost from the beginning, I said: 'You have to be careful you aren't making an apology for the NAMBLA people,' " explains George Stoney, professor of film and television at NYU.
"He never got what I consider a representative testimony of the damage that could be done" by NAMBLA members], continues the professor, who nonetheless gave Sideman an "A" for the project. "The film doesn't have the kind of social responsibility that I would like to see."
Sideman, however, insists that the absence of any explicit condemnation of the pedophiles only makes for a better film.
"I'm not a supporter of NAMBLA," says the filmmaker in a tone of voice that suggests the statement should be obvious. "But I never meant to dictate my point of view. I want the audience to judge for themselves."
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N.Y. Pedophile Fights To Save Teaching Job
By Terence Samuel
Salt Lack City Tribune - December 12, 1993
NEW YORK -- Peter Melzer, 53, has openly admitted he is sexually "attracted to boys up to the age of about 16."
As a longtime member and leader of the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), Melzer has raised money, written articles and worked for the repeal of laws that forbid sexual relationships between men and boys.
Melzer also is a physics teacher at the Bronx High School of Science.
The New York City Board of Education has said that Melzer -- because of his beliefs -- is disruptive, dangerous and immoral. They want to fire him.
"Mr. Melzer's advocacy and promotion of illegal activities make him unfit to serve as a classroom role model," said School Chancellor Ramon Cortines in a call for Melzer's firing at the beginning of the school year.
Melzer, who says that despite his beliefs he never has had sex with boys, contends the attempt to fire him is a violation of his First Amendment rights.
"All my activities have been purely intellectual, solely intellectual," said Melzer. "What is at stake is the right of anyone to associate freely, to have a right to think and to have a right to speak freely."
The case raises an intricate set of questions about privacy and free speech, and the boundaries between individual rights and community standards.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Times have opined that regardless of the discomfort Melzer's ideas may cause some people he should keep his teaching job.
"Our position is that this is a purely speech issue," said Laura Murray, legislative director of the New York ACLU. "According to the facts of this case he has never engaged in any illegal conduct inside of the classroom or outside. So what it comes down to is that no matter how odious and repugnant the speech, it is protected. Unless they can show conduct or speech advocating this inside the classroom, he has to stay. And I say that as a parent."
Some parents, of course, have little interest in the First Amendment argument.
"Where are the rights of the parents to protect the children?" asked Joan Levenson, co-president of the Parents' Association of the Bronx High School of Science. "What he is advocating is illegal in all states that I am aware of."
Since his return from a year's sabbatical in September, Melzer has been placed in an administrative position away from the classroom pending the outcome of arbitration in his case.
The case has hit such a nerve that some parents who do not even have children at Bronx Science have filed a class-action lawsuit against the school district to prevent Melzer from ever being allowed into the classroom again.
John Hartigan, who represents the parents, said his clients also were asking the court to order the school district to send out a one-page letter to parents of all male students under 17, warning about the danger of pedophilia.
While he professes optimism that he will get his job back, Melzer said what he mostly felt was anger.
"I feel incensed by this whole situation," said Melzer. "I have done the right thing. I have never done or said anything in any shape, way or form to make kids feel uncomfortable in the classroom. . . . I have never used my position to influence kids in any way, and you have a fair amount of power as a teacher."
He shrugs off those who call him sick or perverted.
"History is full of that type of reaction when people are dealing with something that they don't understand, or when it's been distorted for them," he said.
While he understands why parents are concerned, Melzer says they have no need to be.
Melzer says he is no more a threat to students than a responsible male heterosexual teacher would be to female students.
For now, Melzer only wants to return to the classrooms of Bronx Science. He has spent more than half his life at the school, first as a student, then, for the last 25 years, as a teacher.
"It's a little sentimental," he said. "This is where I belong."
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Pedophiles Rationalizing Irrationality
Newsday - July 8, 1994
(three stars) CHICKEN HAWK. (U) The North American Man-Boy Love Association, in all its irrational glory. Fascinating, frightening and important. 55 min. (vulgarity, adult themes). Directed by Adi Sideman. With the 20-minute short "Red Light, Green Light," at Cinema Village, 12th Street near University Place.
LEYLAND STEVENSON, who spent several years in prison for the distribution of child pornography, is probably the scariest of the pedophiles who populate Adi Sideman's "Chicken Hawk." Smiling beatifically, wheedling his way into children's confidence as he cruises the strip malls, he recalls his sexual encounters with a joy that's unconfined, and thoroughly monstrous.
For all their quiet-civilized and seemingly rational defense of what is probably society's most loathed aberration, the members of the North American Man-Boy Love Association, or NAMBLA, never deal with the fact that they're interested in children, because they're children. An artist named Chuck Dodson makes fatuous declarations about kids exercising their sexual rights; Stevenson constantly perceives young boys "flirting" with him. But even if any of it were true, it wouldn't matter, because NAMBLA's prey shouldn't be obligated to fend off adult advances while determining their own sexual orientation.
To say Sideman has taken a hands-off position is a horrific pun, but it's also true, and wise. It would have been too easy to become strident, had he set out to make an agitprop piece about the evils of pedophilia. So he lets NAMBLA bury itself. And the organization obliges.
There's a certain grudging respect one gives these men for agreeing to appear onscreen and defend the indefensible. Renato Corazza, a teacher of Italian who claims he never engaged in physical pedophilia, attempts to explain the esthetics of boy love, with creepy intelligence. The poet Allen Ginsberg, whose appearance here comes as something of a shock, reads a graphic ode to youth. Peter Melzer, the Bronx High School of Science teacher whose membership in NAMBLA gave WNBC /4 's John Miller such a good ride, seems besieged.
The standard, unsubstantiated, arguments in favor of pedophilia are made: that victims often visit their molesters in prison; that boys call NAMBLA constantly in search of partners (and if anyone mentions the ancient Greeks again, I'm burning my Mary Renault books). Their pariah status makes them almost pitiful: At the 1993 gay march on Washington, NAMBLA's members are rightfully reviled for trying to hitch their wagon to a legitimate civil rights movement. And the venom of their antagonists almost makes NAMBLA seem like victims: In one particularly vile phone message left on the group's machine, the speaker's litany of vulgarities includes "kike," which indicates that perhaps there's something else going on in his head.
But Sideman's most important accomplishment is this: If an adult can be swayed even a little by the case of child molesters, then imagine how easy it might be to seduce a child.
"Chicken Hawk" will be shown with "Red Light, Green Light," a mid-'60s educational film about avoiding "deviants." Obvious and antique, it includes a multi-racial cast of children and a crew of "bad people" who are almost all 30-ish, male, well-dressed and good looking - unlike the members of NAMBLA, all of whom fit the stereotype of dirty old men.
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Men Who Love Boys Explain Themselves
By Stephen Holden
New York Times - July 8, 1994
Adi Sideman's crude documentary "Chicken Hawk: Men Who Love Boys," has an inflammatory title that belies its even-handed portrait of the North American Man/Boy Love Association, the notorious pedophile organization better known as Nambla.
The film, which opens today at Cinema Village, is built around interviews with several men whose professed objects of desire are youths under the legal age of consent. One after another, they defend themselves against the view of Nambla as an organization of sadistic child molesters and pornographers, arguing that Nambla is a civil rights organization opposed to the age-of-consent laws. The more outspoken among them talk of child liberation in a "sexophobic" society.
Nambla's opponents, like Tom McDonough, who founded a conservative action group called Straight Kids U.S.A., are also heard from. Mr. McDonough is shown yelling "Baby-raper!" in a demonstration outside the apartment of a Nambla member. Participants in the 1993 gay and lesbian march on Washington express chagrin at having a Nambla contigent march in their ranks. And a Nambla member, Renato Corazzo, is shown monitoring obscene hate messages on the organization's hot line.
Nambla, founded in 1978, claims a membership of around 1,500. Besides the hot line, it publishes a monthly newsletter illustrated with photos of pubescent boys.
Among those interviewed is Peter Melzer, a teacher at the Bronx High School of Science who was suspended from his job when it became known that he was a Nambla member. Mr. Melzer says he has never broken the law.
The film's most outspoken and vivid personality, Leyland Stevenson, was imprisoned several years ago for distributing child pornography. He describes his sexual relations with boys in the quasi-religious language of a persecuted fanatic. He even allows the camera to show him cruising in a suburban mini-mall. From his attitude of messianic hauteur, it is clear why Mr. Stevenson was chased out of his West Virginia town. And his creepy grandiosity casts a clammy chill over the film.
"Red Light, Green Light," the short film that accompanies "Chicken Hawk," teaches children to identify adult strangers who may be molesters. It presents a series of scenarios it calls "red light" situations in which a stranger's advances should send up warning alarms. CHICKEN HAWK Men Who Love Boys
Directed and produced by Adi Sideman; director of photography and editor, Nadav Harel; music by Franck and Ravel. Running time: 55 minutes. RED LIGHT, GREEN LIGHT
Directed by Bill Brose; written by Michael Halbern; director of photography, Phil Lohmann; edited by Mark Snegoff. Running time: 20 minutes. Both films released by Stranger Than Fiction Films. At Cinema Village, 22 East 12th Street, East Village. These films are not rated.
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`Chicken Hawk': The Controversy
By John Anderson
Los Angles Times - August 14, 1994
For a documentary, it's got a little of everything: sexual aberration and family values, radical sodomites and rabid reactionaries, ancient Greece and Allen Ginsberg. And when it was shown last March at the New York Underground Film Festival, Adi Sideman's "Chicken Hawk: Men Who Love Boys"-a 55-minute documentary about the North American Man-Boy Love Assn.-started the feathers flying.
Founded in Boston in 1978 and currently claiming 1,500 members, NAMBLA celebrates sexual liaisons between adult men and underage boys. Not surprisingly, its existence has provoked every response but ambiguity: Conservative groups loathe the NAMBLA-ites; most gay groups despise them because their predilection feeds into the oldest homophobic stereotype about gays in general-that they are, by nature, child molesters; and even those who would ordinarily defend the civil liberties involved are put off by NAMBLA. The group holds meetings, operates a hot line and publishes a newsletter, all in the face of a dearth of public support.
So it might be surprising that a film would give such a group a platform, allowing them to air their positions while showing them being threatened, reviled and going about NAMBLA business.
But amid the protest marches, angry press conferences and widespread fury about NAMBLA-something that is certain to follow the movie to Los Angeles when it opens Friday at the Los Feliz-director Sideman sat in a sea of relative calm. Because, with the exception of his NYU film school professor-who questioned whether the film was socially responsible, and then gave him an A on the project anyway-no one on either side of the issue has had a bad word to say about it.
"I'm pro-`Chicken Hawk' and anti-NAMBLA," said Tom McDonough, 47, founder of the conservative, anti-homosexual organization Straight Kids USA, whose virulent opposition to NAMBLA is a major component of Sideman's film.
"I'm glad they're getting their 15 minutes of fame," he said. "I'm glad they're getting this exposure, because they're an organization that's out to do harm-dropping the age of consent laws is what they really want to do-and a lot of the members are involved in child pornography. They only did this movie if they were allowed tell their side of the story, and it really makes them look evil."
Chimes in Don Rosenberg, 46, of the New York-based National Traditionalist Caucus, "We thought the movie was very fair. I think Adi did a very good job of letting Leyland Stevenson (the film's central character) and his cohorts hang themselves."
Stevenson, 55, a spokesman for NAMBLA, was the focus of much criticism when the film opened in New York July 6 as perhaps the most riveting example of NAMBLA-ism. Shown in the film smiling beatifically as he discusses his sexual preference for young boys, or trying to wheedle his way into a boy's confidence at a small-town strip mall, Stevenson comes across as a man who savors his sexual encounters with unbridled joy.
"It's a positive movie," said Stevenson, who has been arrested for possession of child pornography and describes himself as an investor. "It presents flesh-and-blood human beings, as distinguished from stereotypes. It does not attempt to represent man-boy relationships with some absurd preconception that all such relationships are wrong or bad. It simply shows a few people who happen to be members of NAMBLA, and happen to be interested in boys, as what they are: People who have a system of values, a set of ethics and a set of priorities about what's worth doing in life, on their own terms."
For Sideman, 23, who came to the United States from his native Israel, discovering the existence of NAMBLA was only slightly more surprising than has been the reaction to his film.
"The Straight Kids people are happy with it because they think it shows the kind of atrocities NAMBLA is about, how evil they really are," Sideman said. "And NAMBLA loves the film, because its members think it shows how humane they are. It's something I never expected. But both extremes have found a way to use it for their own political reasons."
That there is such unanimity of opinion between warring factions is testimony to "Chicken Hawk's" coldly objective point of view.
"I never had a script, or an agenda," said the director, now an NYU senior. "I didn't set out saying, `I'm going to crucify these people.' I knew that were going to do it to themselves." He laughs.
"What are we supposed to do?" he asks, of those who, like his professor, would call "Chicken Hawk" an apology for NAMBLA. "Should we shove it all under the carpet? If we simply say, `These people are monsters,' and don't discuss it, they may very well just act like monsters."
McDonough's pursuit of-some might say obsession with-NAMBLA helped break a March, 1993, WNBC-TV story revealing that member Peter Melzer, who is seen in the film, was teaching at the Bronx High School of Science. He has so far focused almost exclusively on the organization, but sees its existence as symptomatic of larger issues.
"What we're trying to do is help stem the tide of gay propaganda that's been going on in America," said McDonough, who calls his Straight Kids USA a "sexual identity support group." "Homosexuals have hundreds of support groups to make them feel comfortable about being a homosexual. Now, if you feel comfortable about something, there's no need to change. So these groups are actually helping to keep them homosexual. We want to make straight kids feel comfortable about being heterosexual."
"What a lot of nonsense," responds Stevenson. "As if the vast 90-plus percent of society was not already promoting that particular lifestyle."
Stevenson and McDonough never meet on film; McDonough and members of the National Traditionalist Caucus are seen demonstrating outside the home of Renato Corazzo, the voice of the NAMBLA hot line (whose recorded message urging callers to "be safe, be brave, be proud to be a boy lover" been been played repeatedly on the Howard Stern radio show). NAMBLA members are seen being castigated by civil-rights groups at the gay march on Washington. A father is heard saying of Leyland Stevenson, "If he came near my kid, I'd kill him."
Ginsberg, who is seen briefly, issued a statement following the release of the film, saying that he'd joined the group in the mid-'80s as a "matter of civil rights and free speech," and as a response to the "self-righteousness" of the news media's judgment of the group. "To my knowledge, he hasn't seen the film," said Ginsberg associate Bob Rosenthal. "Allen is not a pedophile. I have many times trusted Allen in the company of my sons. His NAMBLA membership was purely about civil liberties."
While some may want to distance themselves from the group, or the movie, Stevenson-whose frankness about his sexual preferences earns grudging respect even from McDonough-holds firm.
"If I have any particular courage," he said, "it is simply to acknowledge that truth has a much higher value than the approval that other people may or may not give one at a certain point. If it's necessary to be politically incorrect-and in this society it seem absolutely essential if one is even going to approach truth-then I'm going to be as radically politically incorrect as necessary to further that objective."
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Film on paedophilia setto provoke uproar
By Glen Allan
South China Morning Post - January 29, 1995
"There are good paedophiles and there are bad paedophiles. We are good paedophiles."
These provocative words from controversial child sex-ring NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association) spokesman Roy Radow, look set to create a storm of protest at Hong Kong's annual Gay and Lesbian film festival next weekend.
Independent legislator Peggy Lam Pei Yu-dja last night criticised the Arts Centre for including documentaries on paedophilia in the film festival.
And the furore looks set to continue after it was revealed the film, to be shown next Sunday, is yet to receive a screening category. The festival brochure says categories will be posted at the box office at the time of screening.
At present, as a member of staff at the Arts Centre said last night, "as long as children are over the age of six, they will be able to watch the film".
NAMBLA members are seizing a chance to defend their lifestyle through a documentary Chicken Hawk - Men Who Love Boys.
This is the first time the film, which has sparked outrage in America, is to be shown in Hong Kong - and Arts Centre staff are bracing themselves for a backlash.
The film looks at the way society perceives paedophiles - and the way paedophiles view young boys.
Arts Centre Film and Video Department manager Jimmy Choi Kam-chuen said Chicken Hawk would "stretch the morals of Hong Kong people to the limit".
"It's not your average kind of film, but then again the festival is all about showing all different kinds of human behaviour in society," he said.
But Ms Lam said the Arts Centre should "draw the line at this filth".
"This is wrong. Paedophilia is dirty sex," she said. "How can anyone say that promoting sex with young boys is educational - it's filthy.
"The Arts Centre should know where to draw the line at a festival such as this. I can only hope they {the Arts Centre} ensure this film is given a Category III rating."
The film focuses on four NAMBLA members: Renato Corezza, who says "Why do I like boys, why do people like shortcake? It's a matter of taste", Leyland Stevenson, imprisoned for several years for distribution of child pornography, American poet Allen Ginsberg and Peter Melzer, a former science teacher who was suspended from school after his bosses discovered he was a member of the group.
The other main character in the film is Tom McDonough, the founder of Straight Kids USA, an organisation formed to "rid America of this scum", declaring "as far as we're concerned the only good peadophile is a dead peadophile".
In the film, McDonough yells outside a NAMBLA member's apartment: "You baby-rapers are going to hell."
The ways of NAMBLA members have seen them run into trouble with everyone, from their neighbours to the FBI.
NAMBLA members will tell Hong Kong audience of the "difficulties facing paedopohiles" and their battle to be accepted by society.
During the 60-minute documentary, they will explain the "feelings behind their actions" as they try to explain what attracts them to small boys.
Corazzo was branded a pervert in his hometown in West Virginia by Straight Kids USA because of his involvement with NAMBLA.
Neighbours were so incensed by the 58-year-old they designed posters of the peadophile with a picture of him under the banner: "Wanted: Child Molester" and pasted them all over town.
The film sparked a barrage of protest when it was first shown in New York last year. Halfway through the showing, television cameras went on, facing the audience. Men in the front row covered their faces and the theatre erupted in screaming and panic.
So why is the Hong Kong Arts Centre airing the controversial footage?
Mr Choi said it was a matter of "not turning a blind eye".
"I think it's worse if this subject is not given the chance to be debated," he said. "I hope the people in Hong Kong will be able to look at it from an objective point of view instead of shunning it.
"We are waiting to see what the reaction is on the night. Obviously we cannot tell if the film will have the same impact on viewers in Hong Kong as it did in New York but we are hoping it will spark a serious debate on the subject."
Another film promoting paedophilia is also being shown at the Arts Centre the same evening.
Bach Virus follows three adults as they discuss why sleeping with young boys "gives them such a high".
The Arts Centre programme describes the film as giving "an insight into the world of three adults, who feel attracted to little boys".
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There are good paedophiles and there are bad paedophiles
By Glen Allan
South China Morning Post - January 29, 1995
"There are good paedophiles and there are bad paedophiles. We are good paedophiles."
These provocative words from child sex-ring NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association) spokesman Roy Radow, are set to create a storm of protest at Hong Kong's annual Gay and Lesbian film festival next weekend.
Independent legislator Peggy Lam Pei Yu-dja last night criticised the Arts Centre for including a documentary on paedophilia in the film festival.
And the furore looks set to continue after it was revealed the film, to be shown next Sunday, is yet to receive a screening category. The festival brochure says categories will be posted at the box office at the time of screening.
At present, as a member of staff at the Arts Centre said last night, "as long as children are over the age of six, they will be able to watch the film".
NAMBLA members have seized a chance to defend their lifestyle through the documentary Chicken Hawk - Men Who Love Boys. It is the first time the film, which sparked outrage in America, has been shown in Hong Kong - and Arts Centre staff are bracing themselves for a backlash.
The film looks at the way society perceives paedophiles - and the way paedophiles view young boys.
Arts Centre Film and Video Department manager, Jimmy Choi Kam-chuen, said Chicken Hawk would "stretch the morals of Hong Kong people to the limit".
"It's not your average kind of film, but then again the festival is all about showing all different kinds of human behaviour in society," he said.
But Mrs Lam said the Arts Centre should "draw the line at this filth".
"This is wrong. Paedophilia is dirty sex," she said.
"How can anyone say promoting sex with young boys is educational.
"The Arts Centre should know where to draw the line at a festival such as this. I can only hope they ensure this film is given a Category III rating."
The film focuses on four NAMBLA members: Renato Corezza, who says, "Why do I like boys, why do people like shortcake? It's a matter of taste."; Leyland Stevenson, imprisoned for several years for distribution of child pornography; renowned American beat poet Allen Ginsberg, who says, "I'm a member of NAMBLA because I love boys"; and Peter Melzer, a former science teacher who was suspended after his bosses discovered he was a member of the group.
The other main character is Tom McDonough, the founder of Straight Kids USA, an organisation formed to "rid America of this scum".
During the 60-minute documentary, NAMBLA members will explain the "feelings behind their actions".
Mr Choi of the Arts Centre added: "We are waiting to see what the reaction is on the night.
"Obviously we cannot tell if the film will have the same impact on viewers in Hong Kong as it did in New York but we are hoping it will spark a serious debate on the subject."
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Where do you draw the line?
By Brian Sullam
Baltimore Sun - April 28, 1996
PRIOR TO April 18, Bruce Edward McDade was a popular Anne Arundel County high school teacher known for his devotion to students and theater.
In his 24 years as a speech and drama teacher, he developed Arundel High School's theater program into one of the best in the region. Students considered him a dedicated, caring teacher who brought out the best in them. He even wrote a widely praised play that was staged at this year's state Thespian Festival. This much-admired man was the side of Mr. McDade the public knew.
But federal investigative officials allege there is another, private side to Mr. McDade that involves a prurient interest in child pornography. When U.S. postal and custom inspectors raided his house on April 18, they say they discovered an extensive collection of computer images of young boys engaged in a variety of perverted sex acts.
Overnight, this teacher who had been considered a role model became an outcast and unfit to teach in the school system.
Unlike Price
Unlike Ronald Price, the convicted Anne Arundel teacher who for years sexually exploited female students, no allegations have surfaced to date that Mr. McDade took advantage of the youths that he taught or coached. From all indications, Mr. McDade's behavior with adults and children was always proper and appropriate.
From what is publicly known in this case, it appears that the supposed fascination with young boys was intensely private and tightly controlled. Mr. McDade's alleged crime is possession of child pornography that he downloaded from the Internet. Affidavits offered at his bail hearing indicated that Mr. McDade possessed child pornography but none was offered that he ever took any pictures or engaged in any sexual activity with minors.
It is clear that Mr. McDade's career as a classroom teacher is over. It doesn't matter that he has a distinguished and unblemished record. Even if Mr. McDade is acquitted of these federal charges, very few parents would be willing to allow him in a classroom with their children.
Underlying this incident is an interesting dilemma: Where do the teachers' rights of privacy end and where does the public's right to know as much as possible about the people teaching their children begin?
In some ways, there are similarities between Mr. McDade's case and that of Peter Melzer, a former teacher at the Bronx High School of Science in New York. Mr. Melzer, a teacher with 30 years in the city's public schools, was editor of a newsletter published by the North American Man/Boy Love Association, a group that advocates "consensual" sex between men and boys.
Unlike Mr. McDade, Mr. Melzer never hid his views. He had been a long-standing member of NAMBLA, openly attended its meetings and put his name on the organization's newsletter. Only after a television station showed him at a NAMBLA meeting did the school system remove him from his position. While the local case involves allegations of criminal activity, Mr. Melzer's transgressions involved his constitutional rights of free speech.
In correspondence with a postal inspector posting as a pedophile pen pal, Mr. Melzer admitted that he was "attracted to boys up until the age of 16," but also said he would "not engage in unlawful acts." Apparently he kept his word. His students never complained about him making any advances or promulgating his strange views on sex.
Some parents argued that while teachers with strange views like Mr. Melzer have a constitutional right to say and think whatever they want, they don't have a constitutional right to be teachers. These parents would say that such bizarre views on adult and child sexual relationships would make it difficult for these teachers to discharge at least one of their duties: report possible cases of sexual child abuse.
What of other strange views? What, then, does the system do about teachers with strange views on other subjects that have nothing to do with sex but are equally upsetting to mainstream thought? What if a teacher was an extreme animal rights advocate and believed that human and animal lives are equal, or a teacher whose free time was spent working for racist organizations, or one who collected human skulls and used them as bowls for eating?
How deeply can school systems inquire about teachers' personal lives? A background check on Mr. McDade would have probably turned up nothing because the man had no criminal record.
Can school systems force employees to answer extensive and very personal questionnaires in order to unearth information about possible deviancy? Is it acceptable for teachers to have unconventional political, social or religious views but unacceptable to have bizarre views on sex?
Where do we draw the line? In light of cases like the one that shook Arundel High this month, school officials are going to have to address that question.
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House Whip Flays Apple Over Booted BZ. Teacher
By Timothy J. Buger
Daily News - June 26, 1998
WASHINGTON A top congressional Republican catapulted fired Bronx teacher Mildred Rosario into the national spotlight yesterday, charging that New York City schools go easy on pedophiles but won't tolerate religion.
Simultaneously, the Rutherford Institute the group that helped bankroll Paula Jones' sex-harassment suit against President Clinton said it is taking up Rosario's cause.
"A school system where pedophiles have more access to our children than teachers who have a deep commitment to faith is not the type of school system our children deserve," House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) said at a news conference with Rosario.
Rosario was fired earlier this month for pushing her born-again Christianity beliefs at school, the Board of Education said.
She got in trouble over a June 8 homeroom session during which she talked religion in response to a student's question about a fellow sixth-grader's death, the board said.
Board spokeswoman Chiara Coletti said Rosario never offered a defense and continued proselytizing during a board hearing on the case. She had to be fired under state law and constitutional requirements for the separation of church and state, Coletti said.
Since then, Rosario has said she wants her job back and has lawyers working on the case.
DeLay called on New Yorkers to "rise up and express their outrage at the treatment of this admirable woman."
But Coletti said Rosario was about to be fired for "unsatisfactory ratings . . . and she knew it." She noted "an irony that there is a cause celebre on the religious right to maintain a teacher who would have been dismissed for unsatisfactory performance."
DeLay's pedophilia remark was a reference to Bronx high school physics teacher Peter Melzer, a member of a controversial group that advocates consensual sex between men and boys.
Coletti said the board wanted to fire Melzer who was put on administrative duty in 1993 but he has been fighting the move and filed suit against the city.
In Charlottesville, Va., institute lawyer Ron Rissler said his group would offer legal assistance to Rosario and her attorneys.
"We think her dismissal was premature and based on a lack of due process," he said.
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The Gospel According To . . . New York Schools Create A Religious Martyr
By Steve Chapman
Chicago Tribune - July 2, 1998
Conservatives generally believe in upholding the law and punishing those who break it. But Republican leaders in Congress are lining up in support of someone who used a position of public trust to defy the law, expresses no regret about it and gives every indication of planning to do so again if given the chance.
No, not Bill Clinton. The person they are defending is Mildred Rosario, a substitute public school teacher who was recently dismissed for taking it upon herself to implement her own interpretation of the separation of church and state.
On June 8, she was teaching bilingual education at an intermediate school in the Bronx when the principal went on the public address system to request a moment of silence for a student who had drowned. Asked by a child where the boy was, Rosario replied that he was in heaven.
After some discussion about God and the hereafter, the teacher invited any students who didn't want to participate to take a book and read in the back of the room. She then asked "if anyone would like to accept Jesus as their personal savior." Rosario then went through the aisles, praying aloud and placing her hand on the forehead of each child who had assented.
A parent objected, a disciplinary hearing convened, and Rosario was fired. This set off an uproar. Parents with children at the school rallied on her behalf. New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Speaker Newt Gingrich protested her removal. House Republican Whip Tom DeLay of Texas appeared with Rosario at a news conference, claiming that in the New York school system, "pedophiles have more access to our children than teachers who have a deep commitment to faith." Overnight, Rosario became the poster girl for those who say the Constitution has been twisted to mandate persecution of Christians.
But Rosario wasn't fired for her religion. For that matter, she wasn't punished for openly expressing her own Pentecostal faith when she said that the drowned boy was in heaven. If that had been all, says New York Civil Liberties Union executive director Norman Siegel, "no one would have made a big deal of it."
Rosario, however, didn't stop at merely stating her beliefs. She tried to convert students to her version of Christianity by inviting them to accept Jesus as savior, right then and there. Altar calls are fine in church and revival meetings, but under our Constitution, they don't belong in public schools--a point that is not in dispute among serious people.
Michael McConnell, a University of Utah law professor who is among the legal scholars most respected among conservatives, says, "If you're going to have public schools, you can't have teachers engaged in overt proselytizing." What would DeLay say if a Jewish or Muslim teacher--motivated by a "deep commitment to faith"--asked Christian students to renounce their belief in Jesus as Lord?
Critics contrast Rosario's case with that of Peter Melzer, a New York high school teacher who belonged to a group that advocates sex between men and boys. In fact, the board removed him from the classroom and tried to fire him. There is a big difference between the two cases: Melzer was punished for belonging to the organization even though he was never accused of trying to seduce students. Rosario was punished for proselytizing the children in her care, not for being a Christian.
Giuliani and Gingrich insist that even if Rosario was in the wrong, the loss of her job is too harsh a penalty for a single mistake. And you know what? They're right. Hardly anyone would have demanded her dismissal for that alone.
The problem, administrators say, is that at the disciplinary hearing, she refused to agree to stop her missionary efforts in school--and then started preaching the Gospel to the board members. "Her written statement indicated that she had a religious sense of obligation to advocate her choice of Christianity," said Chiarra Coletti, a board spokesman. Rosario herself says, "I do not regret what I did because God is going to give me the victory."
What is the Board of Education supposed to do when a teacher decides on her own that the Supreme Court's writ does not run in her classroom? Give her a raise?
In the end, the controversy is not about the school board's aversion to any expression of Christian faith but about some conservatives' aversion to abiding by laws and court rulings they dislike. "There was no choice but to fire her," said Coletti, "because we are a governmental agency and we are required to follow constitutional law." Why is it some Republican officeholders don't feel the same obligation?
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The Evils of Tenure
New York Post - October 5, 1998
Schools Chancellor Rudy Crew is furious, and rightly so, over the fact that the Board of Education never took action against a Brooklyn teacher after learning he'd been fired from a former job for sharing a bed with female students. The Board learned about this 10 years ago.
So last week, Crew ordered John Ahern, dean of Wingate High School in East Flatbush, out of the classroom and into a clerical job.
But don't expect to see Ahern off the city payroll anytime soon.
Ahern, you see, has tenure. So even though the states of New York and New Jersey both stripped him of his teaching license, and even though he concealed a 1992 drunk-driving arrest, and even though he knowingly lied three times on various applications (and acknowledged that those lies constituted a criminal offense) - in short, even though he should never have been allowed to step foot in a New York City classroom - he enjoys all the rights of a tenured professional.
All because the Board of Education dropped the ball a long time ago and then decided it wasn't worth the trouble of trying to get rid of him.
Ahern was fired from his teaching job in Middletown, N.J. in 1985 after hosting at least two wild beer parties in his home at which students were allowed to drink and at which he slept in the same bed with female students. (There was no sex, Ahern insists - as if there are actually acceptable conditions under which a 30-year-old teacher could share a bed with underage students.)
Soon after, he was hired by the New York City Board of Ed after lying when asked if he'd ever been fired. He lied again twice- when applying for a raise and for a position as dean.
In 1987, the board learned about Ahern's dismissal in New Jersey - but kept him on anyway, even when New York state revoked his teaching license. (At the time, New York teachers did not need to be licensed.)
So now that Rudy Crew has finally acted, what's next? Well, consider the case of Peter Melzer, the Bronx teacher who was removed from the classroom after his membership in the pedophile North American Man-Boy Love Association was disclosed.
That was back in 1993. Yet Melzer still sits on the city payroll, collecting his taxpayer-funded salary in a non-teaching post. Why? Because he has tenure.
Ahern, by the way, will receive full salary even in his new clerical job.
Under this insane system, getting rid of people like Melzer and Ahern is virtually impossible. At best, it takes years and years, thanks to multiple arbitration hearings, all governed by civil- service and union-contract regulations and laws. All decisions can then be appealed in court, which drags the process out even longer.
Inevitably, the process becomes one of attrition, dragging on until one side gives in.
Tenure was born in the days of widespread political corruption, arbitrary dismissals and low pay for civil servants. Those conditions have long since disappeared, and so should tenure - at least as long at it serves to protect the incompetent and the criminals.
But that won't happen until the state Legislature, wary of riling up the public-sector unions, decides to act. State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno and Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver - are you listening?
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Ex-Teacher Lawsuit Dismissed
By William Glaberson
New York Times - February 28, 2002
A federal judge in Brooklyn dismissed a lawsuit by a former teacher at the Bronx High School of Science alleging that his dismissal was because of his membership in the North American Man-Boy Love Association and therefore violated his First Amendment rights. The association advocates release of convicted pedophiles and the abolition of laws declaring that minors cannot consent to sexual relations. But Judge Frederic Block noted that the former teacher, Peter Melzer, had taken a leadership role in the group. The judge ruled that Mr. Melzer had been discharged ''because of the likely disruption to the internal operations of the school as a consequence of the public exposure'' of Mr. Melzer's activities.
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Meltzer v. Board of Education of The City School District of the City of New York
FindLaw - December 3, 2002
United States Court of Appeals,Second Circuit.
Peter MELZER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK, Carol A. Gresser, Irene Impellizzeri, Victor Gotbaum, Michael J. Petrides, Luis O. Reyes, Ninfa Segarra, Dennis M. Walcott, individually and in their official capacities as members of the Board of Education of the City School District of the City of New York, Ramon Cortines, individually and as Chancellor of the City School District of the City of New York, Joseph Dejesus, individually and as Superintendent of the Bronx High Schools, Hollis Needleman, individually and as Assistant Superintendent of the Bronx High Schools, Edward Stancik, individually and as Special Commissioner of Investigation for the New York City School District and the City of New York, Defendants-Appellees.
No. 02-7338.
Argued Dec. 3, 2002. -- July 16, 2003
Before: VAN GRAAFEILAND, CARDAMONE, and JACOBS, Circuit Judges. Eugene B. Nathanson, New York, New York, for Plaintiff-Appellant. Ronald E. Sternberg, New York, New York (Michael A. Cardozo, Corporation Counsel of the City of New York, Leonard Koerner, Jonathan Pines, New York, New York, of counsel), for Defendants-Appellees.
Among the liberties an American citizen enjoys is the right to associate with whomever he or she chooses for whatever purpose. That right, Alexis de Tocqueville observed in discussing it 168 years ago in his classic book is “almost as inalienable in its nature as [the right of] individual freedom.” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America 184 (Harvey C. Mansfield & Delba Winthrop eds. & trans., U. Chi. Press 2000) (1835).
Peter Melzer (plaintiff or appellant), a New York City school teacher at Bronx High School of Science (Bronx Science or school) asserts that his constitutional rights to freedom of association and speech were violated when the defendant Board of Education of the City School District of the City of New York (defendant or Board) terminated his teaching position. He alleges that action was taken in retaliation for his membership in the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA or Association).
This appeal is from a judgment entered February 27, 2002 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Block, J.), dismissing plaintiff's 42 U.S.C. § 1983 civil rights suit.
BACKGROUND
A. Facts Regarding Plaintiff1. Teaching Record
Plaintiff was a school teacher and an employee of the defendant Board, having taught high school science for over 30 years from 1962 until his suspension in 1993, and his ultimate termination in 2000. He obtained tenure in 1968 as a physics teacher at Bronx Science, one of three highly selective science-oriented high schools in New York City. The school actively vies with New York's other two prestigious science high schools for the City's top students.
During his years at Bronx Science Melzer taught grades nine through 12. He participated in a number of school-related activities, including a volunteer program to teach physics to area junior high school students. He also served as an advisor to the Bronx Science Physical Science Journal and its Bicycle Club, and organized the Regional Science Olympiad. For his school activities and teaching he received several commendations.
2. Membership in NAMBLA
Melzer is a self described pedophile and admits to being sexually attracted to young males up to the age of 16. Despite this proclivity, the record before us reveals no evidence that plaintiff engaged in any illegal or inappropriate conduct at Bronx Science. Plaintiff's outlet as a pedophile is his participation in NAMBLA, which he joined in 1979 or 1980 to discuss with others his long-standing attraction to young boys.
NAMBLA's stated primary goal is to bring about a change in the attitudes and laws governing sexual activity between men and boys. It advocates the abolition of laws governing the age of consent for such activity and the abolition of laws that limit freedom of expression, including child pornography laws. It seeks to build a support network for men and boys, while educating the public on what it sees as the benevolent nature of its activities, and cooperating with the lesbian, gay, and other movements for sexual liberation.
Melzer became very active from early in his membership in NAMBLA and served it in a number of capacities. For over ten years he served intermittently as a member of NAMBLA's Steering Committee, a group that sets the Association's policy. He also served as the organization's treasurer and coordinated its fund-raising drives. Melzer's deep interest in the organization is further reflected in his attendance as one of three NAMBLA representatives at the 6th Annual International Pedophile and Youth Emancipation Conference in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, a meeting devoted to sharing information about the youth pedophile movement worldwide. Melzer co-founded NAMBLA's publication, the Bulletin, and at various times contributed articles and served as editor.
3. NAMBLA's Bulletin
The NAMBLA Bulletin is published ten times a year and features articles on topics of interest to members. The Bulletin is the self-described voice of NAMBLA. It is distributed by direct mail and sold to the public at select magazine and book stores.
Articles appearing in the Bulletin offer insight into the organization's beliefs and purpose, as well as the extent of Melzer's involvement. Issues of the Bulletin where Melzer is listed on the masthead as editor included articles like “Staying Safe and Happy as a Man/Boy Lover,” which appeared in October 1993. The article proffered advice developed by NAMBLA activists on how to deal with police, how to store contraband erotica to escape discovery, and how to keep the specifics of a relationship with an underage boy secret from authorities. That advice included: never answer police questions, avoid keeping photos of underage boys where police may find them, never discuss the specifics of an illegal relationship with therapists or social workers, and secure legal representation before you need it. Another article appearing in the January-February 1993 Bulletin gave advice on how to identify susceptible children and lure them into sexual acts. Melzer stated later that although he did not agree with the article, he did not believe most people would take the advice.
A published letter to the editors of the Bulletin, entitled “Good Touches” appeared in the December 1992 issue. The letter graphically instructed readers on ways to touch specific body parts. In his capacity as editor, Melzer sanctioned such pieces in the “Letters” section of the Bulletin because he thought they had value.
Plaintiff himself wrote several articles. One entitled “Police Infiltrator,” appearing in December 1986, recounted the activities of a detective from the Manhattan South Public Morals Division, who posed as a NAMBLA ally and arrested at least one NAMBLA member. In a follow-up article Melzer complained that the officer coerced vulnerable NAMBLA members into mailing copies of Melzer's Bulletin articles to his employer, the defendant Board. In 1987 the Bulletin also reprinted a letter to the editor of Newsday Melzer had written explaining that NAMBLA believes the ability and the right to experience sexual pleasure is a gift enjoyable by everyone regardless of age or sex. The letter further stated that erotic acts involving young people are not automatically abusive or exploitative.
B. Investigation of Plaintiff
1. Membership in NAMBLA Becomes Public
Melzer's membership in NAMBLA first came to the Board's attention in 1984-1985 via an anonymous letter received by the school's then principal. The Board's Office of the Inspector General conducted an interview with plaintiff on March 29, 1985, during which Melzer declined to confirm or deny whether he was a member of NAMBLA. No administrative action was taken at that time. The investigation was reopened in May 1992 by the newly created Office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation for the New York City School District (Commissioner of Investigation), an investigative body created to succeed the Office of the Inspector General.
During the course of the reopened investigation in March 1993, a local television station aired a three-part news story on public school teachers who were members of NAMBLA. The story was broadcast on WNBC-TV Channel 4 in New York on March 2, 3, and 5, 1993. It featured a secretly recorded video of a NAMBLA meeting at which Melzer could be seen advising a non-tenured employee of the Board to keep his Association membership secret until he acquired tenure. The story also featured interviews with students, as well as an attempted interview with Melzer himself. Other news media soon picked up the story and further disseminated the fact that Melzer, a teacher at Bronx Science, was a NAMBLA member.
2. Response by Bronx Science High School Community
In the wake of this media attention, Melzer became the center of heated discussion in the Bronx Science community. School principal Vincent Galasso attempted to prevent the airing of the first segment of the Channel 4 series, but was told by an NBC reporter, “not on your [expletive deleted] life.” Galasso thereupon convened a number of school officials to discuss his concerns about Melzer and the attendant publicity. Since plaintiff was on sabbatical for the 1992-93 school year, the discussion focused on whether he should be allowed to return the following year. Galasso spoke to nearly 100 teachers and school officials, many of whom shared his concerns about whether Melzer should be teaching children and the effect the news story would have on student recruitment.
The Bronx High School of Science Parents' Association met to discuss the issue on March 3, 1993, right after the first installment of the news story was broadcast. Many of the 50 or 60 parents in attendance expressed anger at Melzer's NAMBLA affiliation. They threatened to remove their children and conduct a sitdown strike at the school if Melzer were allowed to return. A letter was drafted to the Board of Education Chancellor, the Mayor, and other public officials demanding that Melzer and any other known member of NAMBLA not be in a position of daily contact with the students at Bronx Science, or of any other New York City public school. In a personal meeting with the Chancellor, parents' association representatives strongly urged that Melzer not be permitted to return to the classroom, threatening to boycott the school and to call the news media if their views were ignored.
The students themselves held a 300-400 person assembly on March 11, 1993, where a majority of the 30-40 students who spoke opposed plaintiff's continued employment. A few students, however, expressed the view that a person not convicted of anything illegal should be allowed to practice his profession. School publications ran articles expressing opinions on both sides of the controversy. One stated that no matter how strange an organization may appear, people have the right to express their views, while another said plaintiff's actions should be condemned as “utterly detestable.” Galasso estimated that over 90 percent of the student body was unhappy with Melzer's membership in NAMBLA.
Based on these reactions from the school community, Galasso decided that allowing Melzer to return to the classroom would be detrimental to the school. In September 1993 the Commissioner of Investigation issued its report recommending disciplinary action in Melzer's case. The report stated that it had examined the issues and concluded that serious disruption, as well as permanent loss of parental confidence is inevitable if Melzer is returned to the classroom. The investigation report concluded that articles in the Bulletin could serve as an instruction manual for the sexual abuse of children and can reasonably be assumed to have led to such abuse.
C. Disciplinary Proceedings
As a result of this report, the Board filed disciplinary charges against plaintiff stating that he had “advanced the goals and activities of NAMBLA, and assisted in the publication of the NAMBLA Bulletin, including at times editing, writing and raising funds for this publication, all of which promoted illegal sexual activity between male adults and male children under the age of consent.” Further, the Board charged that Melzer's activities had been widely reported, had caused disruption in his school and the school community, and had undermined his ability to serve as a teacher. Melzer requested a hearing pursuant to New York Education Law § 3020-a to contest the charges. After 30 days of hearings held over the course of three years, the hearing officer recommended that Melzer be terminated. The Board upon receipt of this recommendation dismissed plaintiff.
D. Prior Legal Action
Melzer brought the instant § 1983 action in the Eastern District challenging his dismissal by the defendant Board. The district court conducted a bench trial, and in affirming the Board's decision, see Melzer v. Bd. of Educ., 196 F.Supp.2d 229 (E.D.N.Y.2002), found credible Galasso's reports of significant disruption at the high school. It concluded that “Melzer was terminated solely because his employer reasonably believed that the public exposure of [Melzer's] associational activities ․ was likely to impair Melzer's effectiveness as a teacher and cause internal disruption if he were returned to the classroom.” Id. at 245. The threat of such disruption, the district court believed, weighed more heavily than Melzer's rights to speech and association. Id. at 250-52.
With this factual background in mind, we turn now to a discussion of the legal issues.
DISCUSSION
I Pickering Test for Public Employees' SpeechA. In General
The First Amendment protects the speech and association rights of an individual like Melzer, no matter how different, unpopular or morally repugnant society may find his activities. Nonetheless, it has been established law for over 30 years, since the Supreme Court decided Pickering v. Board of Education, that “the State has interests as an employer in regulating the speech of its employees that differ significantly from those it possesses in connection with regulation of the speech of the citizenry in general.” 391 U.S. 563, 568, 88 S.Ct. 1731, 20 L.Ed.2d 811 (1968). Thus, the government may impose restraints on the First Amendment activities of its employees that are job-related even when such restraints would be unconstitutional if applied to the public at large. See United States v. Nat'l Treasury Employees Union, 513 U.S. 454, 465, 115 S.Ct. 1003, 130 L.Ed.2d 964 (1995) (Treasury Union ).
Under what is now called the Pickering balancing test, public employees like plaintiff teacher do not leave their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse door, even though it is plain that those rights are somewhat diminished in public employment. The test requires a court to consider the most appropriate possible “balance between the interests of the [employee], as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern and the interest of the State, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees.” Pickering, 391 U.S. at 568, 88 S.Ct. 1731 (hereafter Pickering or balancing test). The balancing test allows the government a degree of control over its employees to permit it to provide services to the public efficiently and effectively, see Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 150-51, 103 S.Ct. 1684, 75 L.Ed.2d 708 (1983); see also Waters v. Churchill, 511 U.S. 661, 675, 114 S.Ct. 1878, 128 L.Ed.2d 686 (1994) (plurality opinion), but ensures that public employers do not use their authority to silence discourse “not because it hampers public functions but simply because superiors disagree with the content of [the] employees' speech.” Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U.S. 378, 384, 107 S.Ct. 2891, 97 L.Ed.2d 315 (1987).
B. Pickering's Two-Step Approach
The Pickering test involves a two-step inquiry: first, a court must determine whether the speech which led to an employee's discipline relates to a matter of public concern; and, second, if so, the balance between free speech concerns is weighed against efficient public service to ascertain to which the scale tips. See Rankin, 483 U.S. at 384, 388, 107 S.Ct. 2891.
The first part of the inquiry, commonly referred to as the public concern test, serves a gatekeeping function for employee speech claims in federal courts. The First Amendment protects an employee only when he is speaking “as a citizen upon matters of public concern” as opposed to when he speaks only on matters of personal concern. Connick, 461 U.S. at 147, 103 S.Ct. 1684. If the speech that led to an employee's discipline was on a personal matter-for example, a complaint about a change in an employee's duties-the government is granted wide latitude to deal with the employee without any special burden of justification. Treasury Union, 513 U.S. at 466, 115 S.Ct. 1003; Connick, 461 U.S. at 148-49, 103 S.Ct. 1684.
When it is shown that the employee's speech was on a matter of public concern, the second step, or balancing portion of the test, comes into play. Under it the government has the burden of showing that despite First Amendment rights the employee's speech so threatens the government's effective operation that discipline of the employee is justified. See Treasury Union, 513 U.S. at 466, 115 S.Ct. 1003.
For an employee to prevail he or she must also demonstrate that the speech was the motivating factor causing the public employer to take adverse action. Heil v. Santoro, 147 F.3d 103, 109 (2d Cir.1998). Even when the government cannot show a compelling justification under Pickering for infringing on its employee's rights, the government still may succeed if it can demonstrate that it would have undertaken the same adverse employment action even absent the protected speech. Mt. Healthy City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 287, 97 S.Ct. 568, 50 L.Ed.2d 471 (1977). By the same token, when the government prevails in the balancing test, the employee may still carry the day if he can show that the employer's motivation for the discipline was retaliation for the speech itself, rather than for any resulting disruption. See Sheppard v. Beerman, 94 F.3d 823, 827 (2d Cir.1996).
II Applicability of Pickering to Hybrid Speech/Associational Activities Unrelated to Employment
A. Distinction Between This Case and Ordinary Speech Cases
The claim before us diverges from the usual line of cases requiring application of Pickering, which ordinarily applies in situations involving speech directed at an employer, made at the place of employment or directly concerning the employer in some way. See, e.g., Knight v. Conn. Dep't of Pub. Health, 275 F.3d 156 (2d Cir.2001) (employee proselytizing clients while on public business); Hale v. Mann, 219 F.3d 61 (2d Cir.2000) (report critical of employer's policies); Clue v. Johnson, 179 F.3d 57 (2d Cir.1999) (union faction's criticism of management labor policies); Lewis v. Cowen, 165 F.3d 154 (2d Cir.1999) (objections to policies of Connecticut Gaming Board by Board employee); McEvoy v. Spencer, 124 F.3d 92 (2d Cir.1997) (police commissioner's criticism of police department); Sheppard, 94 F.3d at 826 (law clerk's criticism of judge); Piesco v. City of New York Dep't of Personnel, 933 F.2d 1149 (2d Cir.1991) (senior personnel director's truthful testimony before state senate committee); Lefcourt v. Legal Aid Soc'y, 312 F.Supp. 1105 (S.D.N.Y.1970), aff'd, 445 F.2d 1150 (2d Cir.1971) (legal aid attorney's criticism of supervisor's policies disrupting internal operations).
The present case is unlike the above cited cases in two ways. One is that Melzer's termination stems not from something done in the workplace, but from First Amendment activities occurring outside the workplace and largely unconnected to it. The second is that the activity which prompted the Board to fire Melzer was not a specific instance of speech, or particular disruptive statement, but an associational activity of which speech was an essential component. Melzer's termination did not directly stem from any particular words he said or printed-the most inflammatory articles appearing in the Bulletin were not written by Melzer himself, and most of Melzer's admissions about his sexual preference were made after and as result of the scandal at Bronx Science. Although the Board's report cited the foregoing pieces of evidence in support of their decision, it is clear that the Board's basic justification for firing Melzer was the community's reaction to the message advocated by NAMBLA, its Bulletin, and Melzer himself through his active participation in the organization. Nonetheless, our view is that Pickering remains the applicable test.
B. Applicability of Pickering
Several considerations prompt us to believe Pickering is the appropriate standard here. Addressing the first point of divergence-that the activity in question took place away from the workplace-we recognize that the balancing test's application is not limited to conduct occurring at or directly relating to the workplace. The Supreme Court in Treasury Union applied the Pickering test to a law that prohibited honoraria to government employees giving speeches outside their place of work, the content of which was unrelated to the speechmaker's employment. 513 U.S. at 466, 115 S.Ct. 1003. The Court instructed that although the situation fell outside the typical paradigm, the goal of striking an appropriate balance between employee and government interests is activated whenever the government seeks to regulate employees' protected speech, regardless of where it occurs or how closely it is related to work. Id. Attenuation of time, place, or content of speech from the workplace is ultimately accounted for in the balancing part of the process, but those factors will not absolutely preclude government regulation.
We and at least one other Circuit have likewise recognized the balancing test's applicability to a wider range of issues than just those arising in or concerning speech occurring at the workplace. See Pappas v. Giuliani, 290 F.3d 143, 150 (2d Cir.2002) (applying Pickering to police officer's speech made privately, off-duty and away from work); Bieluch v. Sullivan, 999 F.2d 666 (2d Cir.1993) (applying balancing test to speech made in course of political community activities unrelated to work); Flanagan v. Munger, 890 F.2d 1557 (10th Cir.1989) (applying such test to non-work related “speech” embodied in pornographic movies purveyed away from work).
Taking the second point of divergence from the usual Pickering paradigm-Melzer's termination did not arise solely out of specific disruptive statements-we think the balancing test is nonetheless appropriate. The root of the disruption at Bronx Science cannot be identified discretely as either Melzer's associational activities or the attendant speech, for the two are dependent on one another. Membership in NAMBLA was, surely, an associational activity. However, NAMBLA's primary purpose was advocacy, and Melzer, by his active participation and his role as editor of the Bulletin, furthered this advocacy. Thus, interconnecting associational and speech rights are in play.
Several circuits, including our own, have labeled such claims involving multiple First Amendment rights “hybrid” claims. See, e.g., Knight, 275 F.3d at 167; Balton v. City of Milwaukee, 133 F.3d 1036, 1041 (7th Cir.1998) (Cudahy, J., concurring in the judgment); Brown v. Hot, Sexy & Safer Prods., 68 F.3d 525, 539 (1st Cir.1995). Our analysis is unaffected by the presence of rights to both association and speech. We have recognized that where multiple branches of First Amendment protection are implicated by an employment decision, the affected rights enjoy no more protection than each would receive when viewed separately. See Knight, 275 F.3d at 167. Thus, we will protect plaintiff's interests adequately if we afford a level of Constitutional protection warranted for both speech and association.
Plaintiff's right to speech is undoubtedly amply protected by the Pickering test. See Treasury Union, 513 U.S. at 466, 115 S.Ct. 1003. Associational rights, when exercised in conjunction with speech, are also sufficiently protected by Pickering. We note that in some public employment contexts the right of association is given heightened protection, such as when low-level public employees engage in partisan political activities in opposition to their bosses' own political party. See Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 360-64, 96 S.Ct. 2673, 49 L.Ed.2d 547 (1976); Branti v. Finkel, 445 U.S. 507, 518-20, 100 S.Ct. 1287, 63 L.Ed.2d 574 (1980). But we have ruled that such heightened protection is limited to the context of partisan political conduct. See McEvoy, 124 F.3d at 99 n. 4; Regan v. Boogertman, 984 F.2d 577, 581 (2d Cir.1993). By contrast, where non-partisan associational activity involves speech and causes disruption to the workplace, a balance between government and employee rights adequately protects the interests of both. Cf. Branti, 445 U.S. at 517, 100 S.Ct. 1287 (noting the importance of balancing government and employee interests, but finding employee interests protected when partisan political affiliation among low-level employees is involved); Regan, 984 F.2d at 581 (same); see also Selzer v. Fleisher, 629 F.2d 809, 815 (2d Cir.1980) (Kaufman, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (arguing for application of Pickering to associational claim: “the right to associate freely is not absolute, particularly where its exercise conflicts with the duties and responsibilities of a governmental employee”).
Moreover, we have found Pickering to be the appropriate standard where both expressive and associational activities are involved. In Clue, we applied Pickering to an adverse employment action arising out of employees' union-related pamphleteering and petitioning. 179 F.3d at 60-61. Although describing the claim as a purely associational one, the union activities in question more closely resembled the “hybrid” speech and association we find in the present case. Accordingly, we believe Pickering similarly protects plaintiff's speech and associational rights in the instant case.
III Applicability of Public Concern Test
Having determined that Pickering provides the correct framework for our analysis, we turn to its application here. The first step in the analysis, the public concern threshold to First Amendment protection, was set forth in Connick, 461 U.S. at 146-48, 103 S.Ct. 1684, as a logical extension of Pickering; before we afford protection to a discharged employee, the public concern test requires us to find that the employee was speaking “as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern.” Pickering, 391 U.S. at 568, 88 S.Ct. 1731.
Application of the public concern test is made awkward in this case given the hybrid speech/associational nature of the rights involved. Whether an employee's First Amendment activity relates to a matter of public concern is ordinarily a question of law decided on the whole record by taking into account the content, form, and context of a given statement. See Connick, 461 U.S. at 147-48 & n. 7, 103 S.Ct. 1684; Lewis, 165 F.3d at 163; Luck v. Mazzone, 52 F.3d 475, 476 (2d Cir.1995) (per curiam). But, a court making that same decision when examining rights such as those asserted here, faces the fact that an association engaged in advocacy may deliver many different statements at many different times and places and under many different circumstances. What statements, at what locations and in what context are the ones that should be analyzed is shrouded in uncertainty. In rare situations, all of an employee's statements may be matters of public concern because they are made away from the workplace and relate to the interchange of ideas. In most situations, some statements are found to be of public concern, while others are not. It would be problematic for a court to determine whether the activity of an association-that speaks and acts in a myriad of different ways-relates to a matter of public concern.
For this reason, courts have questioned whether the public concern test is appropriate in cases like the present one. See Treasury Union, 513 U.S. at 480, 115 S.Ct. 1003 (O'Connor, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (recognizing no need for public concern test prior to applying Pickering balancing test to “off-hour speech bearing no nexus to Government employment-speech that by definition does not relate to ‘internal office affairs' or the employee's status as an employee”); Clue, 179 F.3d at 61 n. 2 (questioning need for public concern test in associational claims involving speech); Flanagan, 890 F.2d at 1562-63 (refusing to apply test to off-duty First Amendment activity).
Yet, we need not resolve the public concern issue in the case at bar because it is not critical to the outcome. For purposes of Melzer's claims, we assume arguendo that his activity centers on a matter of public concern, and is thus protected. See Pappas, 290 F.3d at 146 (assuming arguendo that speech was a matter of public concern). In addition, we observe that even if we were somehow to parse Melzer's activity into the public concern test, most of it would likely pass. NAMBLA's stated goal is to effect change in attitudes and laws regarding age of consent. The bulk of Melzer's activity, advocacy, and speech support this goal. Advocacy for a change in public perception and law, a fundamental component of democracy, is certainly a matter of public concern, regardless of the underlying subject matter. Consequently, we assume Melzer's activity is protected and move to the next part of the Pickering test.
IV The Balancing Test Applied to Appellant's Claim
A. Government's Burden
To satisfy Pickering and justify adverse action arising out of an employee's protected activity, the government has the burden to show that the employee's activity is disruptive to the internal operations of the governmental unit in question. See Connick, 461 U.S. at 150, 103 S.Ct. 1684; see also Knight, 275 F.3d at 164; Lewis, 165 F.3d at 163. The disruption must be significant enough so that it “impairs discipline by superiors or harmony among co-workers, has a detrimental impact on close working relationships ․ or impedes the performance of the speaker's duties or interferes with the regular operation of the enterprise.” Rankin, 483 U.S. at 388, 107 S.Ct. 2891.
Any actual disruption that has already occurred is of course a persuasive argument for the government that it has met its burden, but even a showing of probable future disruption may satisfy the balancing test, so long as such a prediction is reasonable. See Waters, 511 U.S. at 673, 114 S.Ct. 1878 (plurality opinion) (giving “substantial weight to government employers' reasonable predictions of disruption”); Heil, 147 F.3d at 109 (holding “government can prevail if it can show that it reasonably believed that the speech would potentially interfere with or disrupt the government's activities” in a manner outweighing employee's interests). In balancing protected First Amendment activity against governmental disruption we take into account the “manner, time, and place” in which speech or activity occurred, see Connick, 461 U.S. at 152, 103 S.Ct. 1684; Lewis, 165 F.3d at 162, keeping in mind that the government is more likely to meet its burden when an employee's disruptive activity occurs in the workplace than when the equivalent activity occurs on an employee's own time, away from work. See Connick, 461 U.S. at 152-53 & n. 13, 103 S.Ct. 1684.
The content of the disruptive speech must also be considered. The more speech touches on matters of public concern, the greater the level of disruption the government must show. Jeffries v. Harleston, 52 F.3d 9, 13 (2d Cir.1995). Extending this notion to hybrid speech/associational activities where possible, the more the association in question centers around expressive activities relating to matters of public concern, the greater the government's burden to show disruption.
A final but important consideration in the balancing test is the nature of the employee's responsibilities. The level of protection afforded to an employee's activities will vary with the amount of authority and public accountability the employee's position entails. See Rankin, 483 U.S. at 390-91, 107 S.Ct. 2891. A position requiring confidentiality, policymaking, or public contact lessens the public employer's burden in firing an employee for expression that offends the employer. See McEvoy, 124 F.3d at 103.
In conducting the balancing test we do not purport to assign a certain value to appellant's activities because to do so invites devaluation of that speech with which one personally disagrees. And, we would not state, as the district court did, that Melzer's activities are on a different constitutional value scale than other types of First Amendment rights more widely accepted by society. The balancing test is less a matter of calculating and comparing absolute values than it is a process that looks at all the circumstances in a given situation and determines which interest weighs more heavily. See id. at 98 n. 3; Brewster v. Bd. of Educ., 149 F.3d 971, 979-80 (9th Cir.1998).
Appellant's rights are not diminished by the fact that, as the Commissioner's investigation report states, some of NAMBLA's publications could be read as an “instruction manual” for illegally molesting children and can “reasonably be assumed to have led to ․ abuse.” Under our system an individual cannot be punished for associating with an organization or engaging in advocacy, absent a clear showing either that the organization is actively engaged in illegal activity or the advocacy is “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447, 89 S.Ct. 1827, 23 L.Ed.2d 430 (1969) (per curiam); see also Hess v. Indiana, 414 U.S. 105, 108, 94 S.Ct. 326, 38 L.Ed.2d 303 (1973) (per curiam) (advocating “illegal action at some indefinite future time” is protected).
Even were it shown on this record-and it is not-that some of NAMBLA's members engage in illegality, or that the organization's aims are in fact illegal, Melzer himself could not be punished absent clear proof-also not present here-that he knew of such illegal aims and specifically intended to accomplish them. See Elfbrandt v. Russell, 384 U.S. 11, 15, 19, 86 S.Ct. 1238, 16 L.Ed.2d 321 (1966); Scales v. United States, 367 U.S. 203, 229, 81 S.Ct. 1469, 6 L.Ed.2d 782 (1961); Noto v. United States, 367 U.S. 290, 299, 81 S.Ct. 1517, 6 L.Ed.2d 836 (1961). Because we assume that Melzer's First Amendment activity possesses the highest value, it therefore places a heavy burden on the Board to justify dismissal.
B. Balancing Test Satisfied
With the government's burden of proof in mind, we turn to an analysis of appellant's primary challenges to defendant's case against him. In so doing, because this case involves constitutional issues, our review is de novo. See Boy Scouts of Am. v. Dale, 530 U.S. 640, 648-49, 120 S.Ct. 2446, 147 L.Ed.2d 554 (2000). At the outset, we note that we conduct our evaluation of appellant's rights versus governmental interest bearing in mind his position as a teacher in a public school. This position by its very nature requires a degree of public trust not found in many other positions of public employment. Although we recognize the danger in allowing the government to take action against an employee for his off-duty affiliations, in the context of teaching schoolchildren Melzer's activities strike such a sensitive chord that, despite the protection afforded his activities, the disruption they cause is great enough to warrant the school's action against him. We examine that action in light of appellant's challenges.
1. Disruption
(a) Reported. Appellant attempts to minimize the reported disruption at the school, casting doubt on Galasso's assessments in particular, questioning the number of students and teachers with whom he spoke, and the tenor of the conversations. It is true that some parents and students expressed support for Melzer as a person harmlessly expressing his ideas. It is nonetheless entirely reasonable for the Board to believe that many parents and students had a strong negative reaction to him, and that such a reaction caused the school to suffer severe internal disruption. The discrepancies appellant points out in Galasso's assessments are minor and immaterial. Thus, we see no reason to disturb the district court's findings of disruption in the Board's favor.
(b) Predicted. Appellant contends that significant disruption cannot be predicted from the record before us. Quite the contrary, we think there is strong proof that Melzer's return to his teaching post would compromise the learning environment, particularly because of his effect on two critical constituencies-the students and the parents. An expert in psychology testifying for the Board stated that having a teacher with beliefs such as Melzer's would provoke anxiety and be a disruptive experience for the average student. He believed students would likely be unable to concentrate in plaintiff's class or be uncomfortable asking him for help after class or in any other one-on-one situation.
Melzer's position as a school teacher is central to our review. He acts in loco parentis for a group of students that includes adolescent boys. See Vernonia Sch. Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646, 655, 115 S.Ct. 2386, 132 L.Ed.2d 564 (1995). At the same time, he advocates changes in the law that would accommodate his professed desire to have sexual relationships with such children. We think it is perfectly reasonable to predict that parents will fear his influence and predilections. Parents so concerned may remove their children from the school, thereby interrupting the children's education, impairing the school's reputation, and impairing educationally desirable interdependency and cooperation among parents, teachers, and administrators. The Board contends as well that parental concern would compromise the competitive position of this high school vis-à-vis other elite high schools in New York City. While not a central concern, this also matters.
We also note, as the district court did, that disruption may arise from Melzer's possible inability to fulfill his duties as a teacher. Appellant candidly acknowledged that it would be difficult for him to decide whether to report an incident of child molestation at the school. Not only is reporting such incidents a part of any teacher's duties, lack of confidence in Melzer's will to do so would further undermine the trust of students and parents alike. Given all of the foregoing, we think the school authorities' predictions of further disruption should Melzer return find full support in the record. See Waters, 511 U.S. at 673, 114 S.Ct. 1878.
2. Heckler's Veto
Appellant maintains, in addition, that allowing disruption caused by public furor over his NAMBLA-related activities to justify his termination amounts to an impermissible heckler's veto. We acknowledge the truism that community reaction cannot dictate whether an employee's constitutional rights are protected. See McMullen v. Carson, 754 F.2d 936, 940 (11th Cir.1985). We also recognize that allowing the public, with the government's help, to shout down unpopular ideas that stir anger is generally not permitted under our jurisprudence. See Feiner v. New York, 340 U.S. 315, 320, 71 S.Ct. 303, 95 L.Ed. 295 (1951) (“We are well aware that the ordinary murmurings and objections of a hostile audience cannot be allowed to silence a speaker.”); Flanagan, 890 F.2d at 1566-67.
Yet, Melzer's position as a teacher leaves him somewhat beholden to the views of parents in the community. Parents are not outsiders seeking to heckle Melzer into silence, rather they are participants in public education, without whose cooperation public education as a practical matter cannot function. Any disruption created by parents can be fairly characterized as internal disruption to the operation of the school, a factor which may be accounted for in the balancing test and which may outweigh a public employee's rights. In consequence, we do not perceive an impermissible heckler's veto implicated in this case. Cf. Pappas, 290 F.3d at 146-47 (allowing community reaction to serve as basis for discharge of police officer).
3. Retaliation for Protected Activity
Finally, Melzer insists that the Board's decision to terminate him is really motivated by a desire to retaliate against him for his NAMBLA membership, and not the disruption that his association causes. We find no proof in the record of retaliatory motive, nor was such evidence presented in any of the proceedings below. The fact that the Board knew of Melzer's NAMBLA membership as early as the mid-1980s and did not terminate him until after his membership became public knowledge makes it highly implausible that a retaliatory motive was the lever for the Board's action dismissing him.
CONCLUSION
In sum, appellant's freedom to associate with and advocate for NAMBLA is protected by the First Amendment. The Board nonetheless meets its burden under Pickering by demonstrating that plaintiff's association and his degree of active involvement in NAMBLA caused disruption to the school's mission and operations justifying the Board's action terminating him.
Accordingly, for the reasons stated, the judgment appealed from is affirmed.
CARDAMONE, Circuit Judge.
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Dismissal Of Schoolteacher Affirmed
By Stacy Albin
New York Times - July 18, 2003
A city schoolteacher who was also a member of the North American Man-Boy Love Association, or Nambla, was justifiably dismissed, despite a claim of an abridgment of his First Amendment rights, a federal appeals court panel ruled. In a decision made public yesterday, the panel ruled that Peter Melzer, a teacher at the Bronx High School of Science for more than 30 years, was justifiably dismissed by the Board of Education in 2000. Parents threatened to withdraw their children from school after Mr. Melzer's membership in Nambla -- which advocates sexual relations between men and adolescents -- was reported by a local television station, WNBC. The panel said Mr. Melzer's right to free association was constitutionally protected but the disruption of his membership was ''great enough to warrant the school's action.'' Mr. Melzer's lawyer, Eugene Nathanson, called the decision ''dangerous'' to government employees.
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Justice at a snail's pace
New York Post - July 19, 2003
Yes, the wheels of justice grind slowly - but this is ridiculous.
Thursday, the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that New York City's then-Board of Education was within its rights to fire teacher Peter Melzer, an activist member of the North American Man- Boy Love Association (NAMBLA).
A no-brainer, right?
Hah!
Melzer had been a physics and science teacher until he took a one- year sabbatical in 1992.
The following year - fully 10 years ago - his membership in NAMBLA was revealed. An officer in the organization, he had published numerous papers advocating the abolition of age-of- consent laws relating to sexual conduct.
The city tried to fire him on grounds that his continued working with students would cause disruption to the school system's mission.
Perfectly logical, of course.
Melzer claimed that his outside activities were constitutionally protected free speech.
Such is the state of union protections that it took a full seven years before the city was actually able to fire Melzer.
While it's gratifying that the 2nd Circuit upheld the city's right to make clear determinations as to who is and is not appropriate to teach school children, it is still daunting that it has taken a decade to get a certain amount of finality to the case.
Of course, there's always the possibility that Melzer might try to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Grind on, wheel!
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