What’s next for Denver School Board Director Tay Anderson now that he’s been deemed super creepy, intimidating, and clearly overstepped his bounds by trying to date and flirt with two high school girls?
The school board plans to censure him, which carries about as much weight as 10 minutes in the time-out corner.
Then we just have to wait and see if Anderson has learned his lesson and stops hitting on girls in the workplace or schoolyard. Not at all assuring to Denver school parents.
Another option is to launch a recall election and drum him out of office, or just wait until he’s up for reelection in 2023 and try and fire him then.
More than a dozen witnesses refused to come forward for interviews by the private investigators hired by the Denver School Board to determine if there was merit to serious allegations made against Anderson.
The final report released this week said investigators could not substantiate claims by one woman who said she knew 60 other women who had been victimized by Anderson’s inappropriate sexual behavior.
Nor could they substantiate claims made by a local BLM activist that Anderson had raped a women he knew in a downtown parking garage.
A significant hurdle faced by investigators — no victims would come forward to be interviewed.
Investigators also examined complaints by two witnesses and a school board member who believed Anderson was trying to intimidate them in tweets while the investigation was underway this summer into remaining silent.
From the investigators report:
This message starts with a direct “warning” to people who have “engaged in conversation disparaging my name over the last few months.” Director Anderson says “if you commented, liked a comment, made a post / tweet, or even a simple DM. I have your name, I won’t retaliate against you whatsoever. Here is the warning do not speak to me ever again. I will literally act like you do not exist.”
This message was received by at least one School Board member as a threat that Director Anderson would engage in punishing behavior against anyone on the Board who has spoken out against him or in response to the allegations.
Then there’s this:
Two witnesses in the investigation reached out to us to make us aware of this posting, and said they believed this was a post meant to intimidate women who might come forward in response to the testimony.
One woman said:
I believe this post will intimate victims to come forward to investigators or report to law enforcement for fear of violence, including potential gun violence from Director Anderson or his many public apologists. I do not know who the post was about, but I hope each of you will see why this post was incredibly problematic to be posted by someone currently under investigation for sexual assault.
Anderson says neither message was meant to intimidate, and yet a member of the school board who must govern alongside Anderson says they were intimidated.
Even the Denver Post notes these are serious problems that need to be addressed:
Anderson’s behavior with these two women and his inappropriate, possibly threatening, social media posts illustrate a blatant disregard for the responsibilities he assumed when he became a school board member. The voters who put him there, the people he represents, and the students whose best interest he should have at heart deserve better.
However, the Post editorial board is willing to let Anderson off the hook with the planned censure if Anderson is also assigned a guardian to be present every time he feels the need to message a high school girl and ask her to teach him how to make a pizza.
The Post states further:
Until trust is regained, the board should demand that Anderson not contact or communicate with students — from any school district — unless another adult in a position of authority is present.
The trust is clearly broken, and it’s doubtful that a strongly-worded censure or demands that the school board director refrain from ever coming in contact with a student will solve what appears to be a pattern of behavior.
Let’s just cut to the chase. If Anderson were a white Republican, the recall petitions would already be on the street, the teachers’ union would be issuing demands, and the Denver media would be in a feeding frenzy.
But Anderson is a Black socialist Democrat who is very popular with liberals and the media, who seem to be satisfied with the impact of a strongly-worded statement.
It’s only a matter of days before all is forgotten and Anderson can settle back into his role as the real victim.