22nd February 2012
TODAY'S BEST BET
Investigation clears gay Fort Worth teacher
Kristopher Franks set to return to work Friday after 4-day leave stemming from allegations of improper behavior
FWISD School board member Carlos Vasquez
Tammye Nash | Senior Editor
nash@dallasvoice.com
FORT WORTH — Gay Western Hills High School teacher Kristopher Franks, put on paid administrative leave on Monday, Sept. 26, following allegations of improper behavior, has been cleared of all allegations and was set to return to work today (Friday, Sept. 30).
Franks is the teacher who became the target of ire from the religious right after he sent a student in his German 1 class to the principal’s office for saying in class that as a Christian he believed “homosexuality is wrong.” The school’s assistance principal then suspended the student, setting off a controversy that made headlines around the country.
That student, freshman Dakota Ary, and his mother enlisted the assistance of Liberty Counsel attorney Matt Krause in fighting the suspension on the grounds that Franks and the school had violated Ary’s right to freedom of speech.
District officials quickly reversed their decision, lifting the suspension.
But Steven Poole, deputy executive director for the United Educators Association of Texas, a teachers union, said Tuesday, Sept. 27, that the allegations leading to Franks being put on leave were unrelated to the incident with Ary.
Franks, who had not spoken to the press previously on the advice of his union representative, said Thursday afternoon that he had just met with Fort Worth Independent School District administrators, who told him the nearly weeklong investigation had determined that the allegations against him were unfounded. He did not elaborate on the substance of those allegations.
Franks also said administrators had given him the option of returning to teach at Western Hills High or transferring to another school in the district.
“I haven’t made up my mind yet what I’m going to do,” Franks told Dallas Voice by phone Thursday afternoon. “I’m going to go back to work tomorrow, and I will talk to my boss [the district’s world languages supervisor], and see what she says and decide what’s the best thing to do from there.”
FWISD Board of Trustees member Dr. Carlos Vasquez told Dallas Voice in a phone call Wednesday afternoon, Sept. 28, that any time allegations are made against a teacher, those allegations have to be investigated, and it is routine for the teacher in question to be placed on paid administrative leave.
Franks said Thursday that he was pleased with the outcome of the investigation, carried out by an independent investigator, and that interim FWISD Supt. Walter Dansby was “very nice” when they spoke.
“I think they did the right thing,” Franks said. “I can go back to work, which is great. But now I just have to figure out how to fix the damage this whole thing has done to my personal life.”
Franks said since the investigation is closed, he is no longer being represented by a union attorney. He has, instead, retained the services of attorney Stephen Gordon to “represent me on any aspects of this whole thing going forward.”
He also indicated that he and Gordon would be discussing what possible actions he might take against “those people who have lied and made false allegations against me.”
While Franks had previously declined to speak to the media, Daokta Ary, his mother and Krause as their attorney went immediately to the press, telling their side of the story in several TV interviews and saying Franks and the school had violated the student’s right to freedom of speech. The case quickly became a rallying point for the religious right.
Krause this week told Dallas Voice that he and his clients are satisfied with school officials’ decision to rescind the unexcused absences the suspension left on Ary’s record, but “we would still like for them [school officials] to completely vindicate him and say that he did nothing wrong. He should never have been written up for an infraction. He should never have been sent to the office, and he should never have been suspended.”
Ary said in media interviews that he made the comment quietly to a classmate sitting next to him in response to a discussion going on in the class at the time.
Dakota Ary
But Franks told friends shortly after the incident that there was no discussion involving homosexuality at the time, and that Ary made the comment loudly while looking directly at Franks.
Franks also told friends that the comment was only the latest in an ongoing series of incidents in which Ary and a group of three of his friends have made anti-gay comments to and about him.
Franks told friends that the harassment by Ary and his friends began several weeks ago after Franks, who also teaches sociology, posted on the “World Wall” in his classroom a photo, taken from the German news magazine Stern, of two men kissing. The photo was ripped off the wall and torn in two at some point during Ary’s class, and Franks told friends he believes that Ary or one of his friends tore up the photo.
During a later sociology class students upset that the photo had been torn up replaced it with a hand-drawn picture, and another student then covered that picture with a page bearing a hand-written biblical scripture from Leviticus calling sex between two men an abomination.
Franks told friends that since that incident, Ary and his friends had continued to make derogatory and harassing comments.
Franks’ friends also said that the teacher, a Fulbright scholar, has been the target of anti-gay harassment for at least the last two years, including having hateful messages left in his classroom and, in one case, having his car vandalized.
FWISD teacher Martin Vann, spokesman for the group LGBTQ S.A.V.E.S. that was formed about a year ago to help protect students and teachers in the district from anti-gay discrimination and bullying, said that Franks told his version of the incident last week, before the current investigation was launched and Franks was required to sign a statement saying he would not discuss the incident with other teachers, administrators, parents or students. Vann said Franks denied getting angry and yelling at Ary, as Ary had said, and reiterated that Ary’s comments were not pertinent to any discussion in the class at the time.
Vann said Franks told him that another student had asked him what the German word for “Christian” was, and how, if he moved to Germany, he could find an English translation of the Bible. That’s when, Franks told Vann, Ary looked directly at him and said loudly that as a Christian, he believes homosexuality is wrong.
It was not, Franks told Vann, a simple statement of belief or opinion but rather an intentional effort to insult and harass the teacher that Ary perceived to be gay.
Krause this week again said that Ary did not direct his remark in class that day at Franks, and that Ary had nothing to do with tearing down the photo of the men kissing.
The attorney also said that Ary told him he did not know to whom Franks was referring when he talked about Ary’s “three friends.”
The Franks case comes in the wake of months of scandal over allegations by teachers that administrators routinely allowed some teachers and administrators to harass and bully students and other teachers, and that teachers who complained often faced retaliation.
Vasquez, who is openly gay, said Wednesday that he believed the Franks investigation would be fair, that he would watch the situation closely “to make sure all the proper procedures are followed,” and that he believed Dansby would handle the situation fairly.
“Considering all the problems we’ve had, I know he [Dansby] will be watching this closely,” Vasquez said.
Vasquez said it is the school district’s responsibility to make sure there is “no harassment in our schools, whether it’s from the teacher to the student, or student to student or even student to teacher. I know that happens, sometimes, too.
“There should be no harassment whatsoever in our schools,” Vasquez , himself a former teacher, said.
Fort Worth ISD has been credited with having one of the most comprehensive anti-bullying and anti-harassment policies in the state, having adopted individual policies within the last year to include prohibitions against harassment and bullying, including that based on sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression, for both teachers and students.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition September 30, 2011.
Subscribe to Dallas Voice by e-mail address to receive news and upates directly in your inbox. Simply enter your e-mail below and click Submit!
MORE STORIES
“How can anyone approve of this, and the findings, totally clearing this public school teacher?” I am reminded of the recent case in South Hadley, Massachusetts in which a group of six male and female high school bullies drove a young girl to commit suicide. You sound just like the locals who thought the six poor bullies were being wrongly punished and that somehow it was the dead girl’s fault. That’s what this kid, Dakota Ary, is – a bully. The only different is that he and his cronies tried to bully an adult, not a fellow student, and the adult stood up to them. No one has the “religious right” to bully another person. The authorities investigated, they found that the sniveling brat violated the 9th Commandment by “bearing false witness” against the teacher, and they properly re-instated the teacher and properly compensated him for the salary which had been temporarily withheld. If the teacher institutes a civil damage suit against the sniveling brat and his parents (who clearly failed to raise him properly both as a Christian and as a human being), I hope the Court hits them so hard in their wallets they will be feeling the pain into the year 2020.
just thinkin’ said: “I can’t believe you were a teacher and minister, but if you were, I pity your students, counselees, and congregation. In all those years you never learned Christian is capitalized? PS- yes, my children attended private school.”
————————
Yep!!! A teacher of K-12 Music (Instrumental, Choral, General, and Keyboard music) for 25 years of public school, history, government; retired and entered/graduated from a Baptist Seminary at that,and was hospital/hospice Chaplain for 10 years. You have to understand that I only capitalize the “C” when I talk about loving, Christ-centered people, and reserve the “c” for the uptighty-whitey-rightie christians, commonly referred to as the American christian Taliban. They are no better than the Islamic extremists, not to be confused with the Muslim Islamic humane people who follow their God, Allah! Allah may not be my God but I do respect the faith and beliefs of all of God’s children!
As to the teacher being found ‘not guilty’ by his superiors, he was cleared of all charges and had every right to be returned to the classroom, gay/straight/bi or whatever the heck you’re against! Now simma down, have a cupa java, take two enemas, and call someone in the morning who gives a cow’s patootie about you! Cheesch! (AND quit wasting everybody’s time here, including yours! Next??
Just thinkin, clearly you are bitter because the world is not exactly as you would like it to be. The sooner you get used to it, the happier you’re going to be because that’s the way things are going to remain…unless, of course, you decide to buy your own planet and move there. For reasons upon which I will not pontificate, I just don’t see the likelihood of that happening anytime in the foreseeable future. Just go forward knowing that certain types of people are going to piss you off (sort of like what you’re doing to most of the rest of the commentators in this forum).
James Simmons… thank you times 5!! Your comments are clearly on the mark. Most people who are hateful of other people are very hateful regarding themselves. Now THAT’S SICK!!!
If that kid had said: “I believe all blacks should be slaves because they had slaves in the bible, and as a christian (christian not capitalized on purpose) I believe it to be so.” You know the school would have suspended him in a second. The NAACP and all other kinds of African American groups would be after that school, and the kids mother would not be looking for a lawyer to represent her kid.
Thank you x 5, Mike Ramon! You are spot on the mark! A good day to you!
Here is some info from People for the American Way about “Liberty
Counsel,” who paid for the boy’s lawyer:
Mat Staver is the head of the [Jerry Falwell] Liberty University School of Law and its legal affiliate, Liberty Counsel, both
sponsors of the Values Voter Summit. Liberty Counsel vehemently opposes rights
for gays and lesbians, and in July filed the lawsuit to overturn New York’s
Marriage Equality Act . The group’s Director of Cultural Affairs Matt Barber
has called marriage equality “ rebellion against God” and said LGBT youth
are more likely to commit suicide because they know “ what they are doing is
unnatural, is wrong, [and] is immoral .”
Did you ever wonder why men and women are created the way they are – could it be that they fit together? It is not hate that thinks homosexuality is wrong – it is morals and a belief in the Creator. I don’t hate anyone because of the way they handle their life, but I can and do think it is wrong.
Jody, if you think it’s so wrong, why are you — and so many others who commented on this post — spending your time reading a gay newspaper?
Jody, let me give you another perspective. The population of Earth just topped seven billion. It has grown from five billion to seven billion in the last 20+ years. The planet is only able to sustain a human population of about eight billion. Who is overpopulating the planet and making the planet a wasteland, which will quite possibly make Earth unfit for human habitation in the next several decades? If you guessed the heterosexuals, then you’re smarter than I think you are. Not only are they being selfish with the limited resources that our planet has left, but they are pointing the finger at those who are not quite so self-centered and narrow minded. So before you start talking about what’s right and wrong, maybe you better take a long hard look at the big picture. Once you do that, provided you are capable of understanding it, then you will see who is really wrong in the overall scheme of things.
Queers will exterminate theirselves, Aids on the rise. GREAT
frank provasek, mat staver and matt barber, why don’t the three of you hyprocrite bible thumpers get down from your pulpits and quit preaching hatred. Homosexuality is just as normal as heterosexuality it alwasys has been and always will be. People are born gay just a people are born to be left handed or have frecles or red hair. You should take the word “liberty” out and insert “ignorant” and call it the Ignorant University School of Stupidity. falwell is long gone, good riddance, but like the cockroach he was, there is another one to take its place.
You might want to read this article before you jump to conclusions, queer basher. http://www.gizmag.com/go/5173/
…. too bad the race to find a cure is winning. You should be ashamed of yourself. Methinks I hear your own closet door creakin’ a wee bit, tootz!!!
Hi Mike Ramon! Please see the message for queer basher. Read this article and do some dancin’…. http://www.gizmag.com/go/5173/ God, et al, DOES care about all of us, even closet cases like queer basher! Peace!
Mike, you called Falwell a cockroach. Why are you being so complimentary?
queer basher
Posted on October 21, 2011 at 5:39 pm
Queers will exterminate theirselves, Aids on the rise. GREAT————-
Errrrrrr, beggin’ your pardon but….”Queers wil exterminate theirselves….”???? I think if you check your grammar, you will find that the CORRECT word is “themselves,” Mr Webster! Ughhhhhh!!!
James Simmons
Posted on October 21, 2011 at 8:34 pm
Mike, you called Falwell a cockroach. Why are you being so complimentary?
——————LOLOL… good one! We should never disparage little insects ike that… they’re food for the little birdies! Peace!
queer basher, I am a gay man, but I stand and fight if you started something with me and it was one on one I’d knock your lights out. But if you are a real basher you’d be running around in a pack like wolves, because you’d be to cowardly to do any bashing by yourself, you piss ant.
Saying that “homosexuality is wrong” is not harassment. What in the world is going on in this country? Kids can say “f— you” to teachers, they can disrespect and disobey them all day long, they can refuse to do their work, throw things at teacher’s cars, call them “bit__”,…… but they can’t voice an opinion that reflects a belief taught to them by their own family? Please, please, please think about what is happening here. Where in the student code of conduct does it say that “A child shall be suspended for stating a belief taught to them by their church and family.”? He wasn’t threatening anyone, he wasn’t malicious. He was simply stating a belief (which by the way, is a belief held by more people than you may think!) Shall we go and suspend or arrest all of the ministers in the churches who are also teaching that homosexuality is wrong? Shall we tear up the Bible?