Letters to the Editor

Whistle-blower still paying price

May 10, 2007 4:57 PM

To the Editor:

The New York Teacher recently published an in-depth article [“Whistle-blower axed again,” March 15] on the price I paid and am still paying for having been a whistle-blower. Last month the City Council, by a veto-proof vote of 43-1, passed whistle-blower legislation.

If my running the gauntlet these past four years did in fact contribute to the passage of this latest whistle-blower bill, I believe my efforts were not in vain.

I appreciate the fact that UFT President Randi Weingarten saw fit to allow the facts of my ongoing case to be known.

Whether this latest whistle-blower bill will be any more effective than all the many other bills — federal, state and city — that have gone before is anyone’s guess.

The ongoing nationwide war against teachers and employees in general who whistle-blow seems to continue unabated, no doubt fueled by the fact that under President George Bush 99.999 percent of all federal whistle-blower suits that have been filed have been summarily thrown out without so much as even a preliminary investigation as to their merits. As always the mindset of corruption emanates from the top and flows downhill to infect and contaminate everything below.

It is highly doubtful I will ever see the inside of a classroom again. Although former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani saw fit to honor me in a City Hall ceremony for exceptional achievement in the field of education, all accolades ceased once I wrote a letter to Chancellor Joel Klein on Oct. 2, 2003, to report acts of wrongdoing I had witnessed personally. (A link to relevant documents can be found at the end of the New York Teacher article “Whistle-blower axed — again” on the UFT Web site.)

The passage of this latest whistle-blower-protection legislation has come too late to protect me and hundreds of other people who have suffered grievous injustices and ill-deserved retaliation and harassment for doing the right thing.

Having committed the most dastardly of all crimes — engaging in whistle-blowing and reporting wrongdoing perpetrated against society’s most defenseless and powerless victims — I now carry forever the stigma of being a persona non grata in the world of education. It is a label I prefer to think of as a Badge of Courage. I wear it proudly.

David Pakter,
HS for Fashion Industries