An assistant principal at a Connecticut elementary school has been placed on administrative leave after being caught on a secret video recording by Project Veritas saying that he doesn’t hire Catholics.
The administrator was placed on administrative leave Wednesday while school officials investigate, the superintendent said.
In the video, Jeremy Boland, assistant principal at Cos Cob School, a public elementary school in Greenwich, Connecticut, participated in the following exchange during a conversation with what he thought was a sympathetic woman:
“So have you found, like, that certain religions tend to be more right-wing?” the woman asks.
“Almost all of them,” Boland responds.
“What do you mean?” the interviewer asks.
“The only one, and I’m not a huge expert on religion, but Protestants in this area are probably the most liberal,” Boland responds. “But if they’re Catholic? Conservative.”
“Soooo. So then what do you do with the Catholics?” the interviewer asks. “If you find out that someone is Catholic, then what?”
“You don’t hire them,” Boland responds, with a laugh.
“So would you ever hire a Catholic, then?” the interviewer asks.
“Honestly, I don’t want to,” Boland responds.
“I agree, but why not?” the interviewer asks.
“‘Cause it’s just that, there’s always that, if they were raised hardcore Catholic, it’s like they’re brainwashed,” Boland responds. “You can never change their mindset. So when you ask them to consider something new, like a new opportunity, or you have to think about this differently, they’re just stuck real rigid.”
Connecticut state law makes it illegal to discriminate in hiring practices against someone on the basis of religious creed.
“Do we work for the parent or do we work for the kid?” Boland asks the interviewer.
“You tell me,” she responds.
“We work for the kid,” Boland says.
“So it’s not about parenting,” the interviewer says.
“It shouldn’t be, I don’t think,” Boland responds.
“You’re teaching them how to think. That’s it. It doesn’t matter what they think about. If they think about it in a logical, progressive way, that becomes their habit,” Boland said.
As for politics in the classroom:
“Believe it or not, the more open-minded, more progressive teachers are actually more savvy about delivering a Democratic message, without really ever having to mention their politics,” Boland said. “It’s subtle. You never say, ‘This is a liberal or a Democratic way of doing this.’ You just make that the norm. This is how we handle things. I mean, it’s subtle.”
Project Veritas published the 12-minute video on YouTube late Tuesday, August 30.
Boland could not be reached for comment by NewBostonPost.
The superintendent of Greenwich public schools, Toni Jones, released a statement Wednesday, August 31.
“Late last evening, we were made aware of a video that had gone viral with a current administrator from Cos Cob School. We intend to do a full investigation and until that time, we will not make any public statements. We ask that you respect the investigation process during this time,” Jones said in the written statement.
She continued: “We do not, however, support any opinions that promote discriminatory hiring practices based on race, religion, gender, or age in any way, and we want to remind our entire community that our curriculum policies and procedures are strictly enforced by our Board.”
A spokesman for Jones later Wednesday provided a written statement stating that the school administrator depicted in the video has been placed on administrative leave.
Fred Camillo, the first selectman of Greenwich and a former Republican state representative, described the assistant principal’s comments in the Project Veritas video as “shameful” and called for “a full investigation into not only this administrator, but the damage caused to applicants, past and present.”
“To think that Roman Catholic applicants may have applied for teaching positions and not received proper consideration due to their religion seems like something from a bygone era, not 2022,” Camillo wrote on his Facebook page shortly after the video was published. “According to this assistant principal, Conservatives, older applicants, and others deemed not progressive were not given an opportunity afforded others. We are entrusted with the task of educating students, and to encourage critical thinking. Brainwashing and indoctrination have no place in halls of learning, or anywhere else, for that matter.”
Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont, a Democrat, also condemned the assistant principal’s comments.
“Discrimination of any kind has no place in Connecticut, especially in our public schools. This is not aligned with our Connecticut values,” Lamont said, according to The Associated Press. “The Connecticut State Dept of Education is aware of the incident, has been in contact with Greenwich Public School administrators, and is monitoring the situation’s progress.”
Christopher Healy, executive director of the Connecticut Catholic Conference, rebuked the assistant principa in an Archdiocese of Hartford Facebook video.
“The revelations that an official in the Greenwich school system discriminated against people of the Catholic faith who are seeking employment are extremely disturbing, and should be treated as a serious breach of the public trust and state laws,” Healy said.
“The comments regarding Catholics, as well as the indoctrination techniques of the Cos Cob elementary school assistant principal, are vile,” he later added. “And they do a profound disservice to the many Catholic teachers in public schools, both in Greenwich and across the state.”
And Leora Levy, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Connecticut this year, also took issue with the assistant principal’s conduct.
“Indoctrination & discrimination!” Levy tweeted. “This is happening in CT & it is WRONG. Our kids deserve to be educated & taught to think critically, not indoctrinated into Leftist ideology. This is why I’m speaking out against CRT & standing up for parental rights!”
“CRT” refers to Critical Race Theory, an academic concept that claims race is embedded in American systems and not just a product of individual bias.
Project Veritas is a right-wing activist organization that publishes unflattering secretly recorded videos of liberals and progressives. Supporters of the organization say that it does important work uncovering how liberals and the mainstream media think. Critics of the organization say that it misleads the public with deceptively-edited videos. The organization was also the subject of criticism in 2017 for trying to discredit sexual misconduct allegations against Alabama Republican and then-U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore by trying to get The Washington Post to write about a fake sexual assault victim.
The video, in its entirety, is available to watch below:
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