Steve Smith Testimony
Senator Mitchell and Representative Richard and other members of the
Education Committee
My name is Steven Smith and for the last nineteen years I have been a
social studies teacher at Belfast Area High School. Because I will not
cooperate with the fingerprinting witch-hunt, it looks like I will not be
able to teach there any more. I have been pondering this law and my
reaction to it for a year now and last weekend wrote this testimony. I
hope it is not intemperate and insulting. Obviously, if I am willing to
give up a job I love, I feel deeply about the bill. I know those on the
other side feel as deeply and I know that they are also sincere and
honorable people. That's what makes witch-hunts tragedies, the
witch-hunters are trying to protect society from a danger but in the
process, in my judgment, the witch-hunt actually does more harm. That, I
believe, is the case here.
I take it that this is not the time to directly debate the original
deeply flawed law, so I come today to speak against LD 1765 because this
bill is also deeply flawed. 1765 attempts to control the pollution
fingerprinting has unleashed, even though evidence and common sense says
the pollution cannot be contained. The first rule in stopping pollution
is to shut off the source. Therefore I urge you to defeat this amendment
and then repeal the polluting fingerprint law.
The first pollution is in the political process. The revelation of a list
of 1324 "criminals" is frighteningly similar to Joe McCarthy's original
Wheeling West Virginia speech in which he claimed he had a list of
communists in the State Department. Like McCarthy's charge, the supposed
slip has whetted the political appetite for more information. Who? What?
Where? When? The supposed slip shows Augusta cannot keep this
information confidential. If LD 1765 passes, there will be a desire to
know the particulars of the denied certificates. There will also continue
to be pressure to discover the nature of the other criminal acts. Augusta
will no more be able to keep that information confidential than it was to
keep the 1324 confidential. Thus the witch-hunt gathers momentum. As in
Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, in Salem in the 1690's, in America
in the Palmer Raids, and in the McCarthy era, anxieties are going to
increase, causing sincere legislators and concerned administrators to
respond with cures that are, unfortunately, worse than the disease. After
a period of years, this witch-hunt will exhaust itself, leaving us sadder
but apparently no wiser, for we continue to repeat the cycle. It may
already be too late to halt this process; some of you have grown fixed in
your positions while others with strategies like LD 1765 try to find a way
to stop the cycle without admitting the original mistake.
Another aspect of the political process that is being polluted is
teachers' relationship with the MEA. Teachers who feel deeply aggrieved
by this law have begun to lose faith in their association, so much so that
I wonder if one outcome of the pollution will be the erosion of the small
amount of political power that teachers now have. For some unfathomable
reason, the MEA endorsed the original fingerprinting bill, the one that
would have required a forty-nine dollar payment for the privilege of being
treated like a criminal. Belatedly the association reversed itself in the
last session in response to widespread teacher outrage, but as soon as
last session's so-called compromise passed, word was sent to us that if we
did not cooperate with this law we were on our own. So here I am, on my
own, because I no longer trust the state MEA leadership to represent me.
If you tell me that the MEA leadership participated in the formulation of
LD 1765, then I reply, "Those people do not speak for me on this issue."
If one of the goals of the fingerprinting law is union busting, it's doing
well. Obviously LD 1765 cannot abate that pollution either; it's only
making it worse.
In addition to the political process, the fingerprinting law pollutes in
five other ways, ways that will not be abated by LD 1765. First, the
fingerprinting law, by making all teachers guilty until they prove
themselves innocent, has polluted the atmosphere teachers teach in. When
I began teaching, some older teachers gave me some well-meaning advice:
Never meet alone with a female student; never meet behind closed doors
with a female student. I decided I didn't want to teach in fear, that I
would have confidence in myself and in my students and teach without
worrying all the time about what someone might think. That confidence has
been justified, until the fingerprinting law. Last spring our Guidance
Department called me on a Friday afternoon and told me that a female
student's ride had fallen through. She lived in my direction and Dad said
it was ok for me to giver her a ride home. I said sure and in dropping
the student off said if there was a similar emergency she could ask me for
a ride. After two or three more rides, during the time you were failing
to override the Governor's veto, I suddenly thought, "I can't be driving
around Waldo County with a teenage girl" and told the girl I could not
give her any more rides. What began as a neighborly act was stopped by
the hysteria I had vowed I would not succumb to. Then I thought I was
just being paranoid and mentioned the incident to a colleague. He told me
that he was having the same thoughts. He was scheduled to go to a
conference with a female student, one he had known for a number of years.
Now he was reconsidering. I expect the future will be similarly polluted.
Sometimes former students call and suggest we meet for lunch. I'm always
flattered for I know the student wants to tell me she's doing well, that I
helped her to be successful, and that she thanks me. What should I tell
her? "No, I can't go to lunch with you because there may be talk in this
era of suspicion." Should I only eat lunch with and give rides to males?
Won't suspicious people then think there is something funny about me for
hanging around with young males? The citizens of Belfast have known me
for nineteen years. Now you have told them that they can't trust me
unless I'm checked by a state and federal process. LD 1765 will not
restore that trust, will not return the security I gained with nineteen
years of service.
A second area the fingerprinting law pollutes is my relationship with my
boss, the MSAD # 34 School Board. Again LD 1765 will do nothing to abate
that pollution. I believe, and have been told, that I am a respected
teacher in Belfast. I recently informed the Board that I would not
cooperate with the witch-hunt and that they would have to fire me.
Naturally, some of the Board members are upset; they did not ask to be the
enforcement agents for a measure they had no part in shaping. I asked
them, as part of my campaign of noncooperation, to have a dialogue with me
about the law and its pernicious effects. In this way I hoped to
communicate with my ultimate boss, the entire community. However, the
School Board has been instructed by its attorney not to talk to me in open
public session. Democracy has been damaged. The Board appears to have
split on this issue and some good, conscientious citizens whose only
motive was to help education are hurt.
A third, but relatively silent, area of pollution is the way teachers feel
about themselves. LD 1765 cannot abate that either. No matter how often
Legislators and the Governor insist they have the utmost respect for
teachers and that the fingerprinting is in no way intended to cast
disrespect, many teachers do not feel that way. You don't know about them
because no one is proud of feeling humiliated and you haven't asked them.
You don't know about my colleague who stood crying in the hall after a
faculty meeting at the thought of being treated like a criminal. Then she
said she had to go through with it for the sake of not losing her job.
You don't know about my colleague who thought she had mentally prepared
herself for the ordeal but came out feeling violated. She mentioned
particularly the common bucket of dirty water that she had to wash her
hands in. You don't know about my colleague who told a friend, "Don't
talk to me about it. I need to keep my job and I'm not going to think
about it. I'm just going to do it." You don't know about my colleague
who stood in line for two hours and said, "This is wrong" and then thought
about his two little boys he needs to raise and educate. He knew he had
no choice. You don't know about my colleague who is retiring, in part, to
avoid fingerprinting. You don't know about the people who call me and say
they can't afford to give up their jobs but they want to do something.
Who cares? You should care, for you also don't know about my colleague
who tells his students, "Don't go into teaching, it's a terrible life. If
I had to do it over again, I wouldn't be a teacher." Will any of these
teachers want their children or their students to be teachers? Being a
teacher has been polluted and LD 1765 cannot abate that.
This doesn't even include the private agonies of the 1324 people who are
on that leaked list. It is too horrible to think about their lives right
now. You are debating their fate, even though the evidence is that
Augusta cannot keep information about their pasts secure. How many
careers and lives are going to be ruined by the State's rummaging around
in their past? LD 1765 is only adding to their anxiety.
The fourth area of pollution is the recertification process. What was
once a process of insuring that teachers were keeping up to date in
content and in the skills of teaching has now become the centerpiece and
the enforcement mechanism of the witch-hunt. It has become a purity oath
sadly reminiscent of the loyalty oaths of the 1950's. By bad luck, I
picked up my recertification package last Saturday, and if I had any doubt
that this law has polluted, that doubt was erased by the Big Brother
quality of the package. I brought the package with me today. I wonder
how much you know about what is being done in your name. The first thing
I noticed was this small white slip telling me I must register online to
be fingerprinted. This is interesting. Last year, when a large number of
people had to be fingerprinted, the State Police came to our school. We
were assured that we would be treated with respect, could make
appointments, and would be processed rapidly without waiting. Apparently
that was done, though I must confess that when I drove away from school
that night with five state police cars in our driveway I wondered if I was
in America. This year, with fewer people to process, the system changed.
We were told that appointments could not possibly be made and that we must
expect to stand in long lines. Suddenly, after some adverse publicity,
the system changed; what was impossible has become mandatory. I would
like to believe that the change was motivated by a sincere concern for
teachers, but I suspect the motive was to forestall any public sympathy
for the plight of teachers.
The second sheet I saw was the actual application for certification
renewal, and here I began to see the pollution of Big Brother first hand.
I think today you should watch as the fingerprinting law ends my teaching
career, for I am going to fill this out right now. Here, where it asks,
"Have you had your fingerprints taken as required by the Criminal History
Record Check?" I am going to put a big red check in "No." There, my
teaching career is done. My School Board now has no alternative other
than to fire me.
But pollution hasn't stopped. On the back there is, here at the top, a
place for the signatures of the local Support System Chair and the School
Administrative District, after they have checked either "recommended for
renewal" or "not recommended for renewal." There's no doubt which they
have to check. Then the form goes on to the purity oath. It clearly
states that the applicant must, that's underlined, answer these questions
after the support team makes its recommendation. That makes sense since
an affirmative reply and the consequent documentation could well damage
the applicant's reputation with colleagues and administrators who may see
the application.
I found the three questions in the purity oath chilling and at odds with
the stated purpose of the original witch-hunt: to protect children. I've
been told that questions like these were always on the form. I guess I
never thought about them. Now, in light of being treated like a criminal,
I found them terrifying. The first is, "Have you ever been convicted of
any crime other than a minor traffic offense?" In the debates over this
bill, I always heard that the only information that was desired was
offenses against children and that information of other criminal activity
was not relevant. Why, then, is this information being required? What
use will it have? Why would anyone think it is safe in Augusta, the same
Augusta that could not keep the 1324 secret?
The second question asks about the revocation or suspension of a
professional license. I suppose this is so that a check can be done to
see if the suspension or revocation involved abuse of a minor. I imagine
state attorneys have checked this, but it seems like requiring someone to
testify against himself. Or is it that you think that school
administrators who have hired teachers for the last twenty years are
incompetent? Should the entire fingerprinting legislation be titled "A
Bill to Rectify Administrative Incompetence?" I don't want to lose my
rights because you think school administrators are incompetent.
The final question is the worst, for it contains guilt by suspicion when
it asks if I have ever "resigned following allegations of physical or
sexual abuse?" Allegations? That's what you want to know about? That's
pollution of the worst kind, when allegations which, one assumes, were
investigated by the authorities on the spot, must now be reinvestigated by
Big Brother in Augusta. Or, once again, do you just assume that local
authorities did not do their job and allowed a miscreant to leave instead
of having a trial? I repeat, I will not give up my rights because you
think local authorities are incompetent. Thus I am going to write, in
large red letters, "None of your business" across these questions. Now I
can sign and date this, knowing that "the information given by me is true
and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief." It is true that I
will not be fingerprinted and that these three questions are none of your
business. I doubt my responses will satisfy the Maine Department of
Education.
However, after reading these two additional pieces of paper, I'm not sure
I would want to satisfy those people. I don't trust them. This innocent
looking yellow checklist appears to be helpful; it lists the steps the
applicant must follow to be recertified. But there is something weird
here. Notice that item three is "Answered all three questions and signed
the back" while item four is, "Acquired the support system chair's
recommendation and signature." An applicant who casually followed this
checklist would reveal to colleagues and administrators the confidential
material of the three questions, a revelation that could well have
catastrophic repercussions, even in the unlikely event that Augusta could
keep the information quiet. Is this an innocent clerical error?
I would like to say so, but then I consider this white paper with its
complete instructions for the certification process. Here the order of
the yellow paper, not the order of the certification application, is
repeated. Number four says to answer the three questions and gives
detailed instructions about what to do if you answer yes to any question.
Then number five says to "Acquire the recommendation and signature of the
certification support system chairperson on the back of the application."
Anyone following either the yellow checklist or the white certification
instructions would violate the instructions of the application and would,
contrary to the assurances of the public debate on this law, reveal
himself to his colleagues and administrators. Can LD 1765 abate the Big
Brother pollution that has occurred in the recertification process? I
think not.
The final and least significant pollution is personal. Let me assure you,
Mr. Smith did not want to come to Augusta today. Even though I have
decided on a course of noncooperation, my first response on being asked to
come was, "Oh no, I have only a few days left to teach and I don't want to
give any of them up." In addition, I know my place. I am only a small
town teacher, not a state leader. In the words of T.S. Eliot,
I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--
Almost, at times, the Fool.
Perhaps I am a Fool, for I have believed what I have taught Belfast
students for the last nineteen years: that individual rights are
important, in fact, inalienable; that a citizen has responsibilities that
secure those rights; and that democracy, in the end, provides liberty and
justice for all. I have tried to live by that creed as well as teach it.
I did not go to Vietnam to come home and let the government take my rights
from me. I am angry at the attempt. I am angry at being made a witch
because the government has chosen this misguided way to quiet public
anxieties about the safety of their children.
My head knows that in the long run democracy will probably be all right.
We have weathered other witch-hunts after damaging scores, or hundreds, or
thousands of lives. We will recover from this one. There will be another
governor. There will be new legislators. At some point we will come to
our senses, whether in days, months, or years. Of course I am, and will
be, bitter in my heart about being expelled from teaching on a matter of
conscience. I am proud I went to Vietnam. I am proud that I joined
Vietnam Veterans Against The War. I am proud that I am resisting this
witch-hunt. I am proud I have joined Maine Educators Against
Fingerprinting. I ask you to consider if you will be prouder if you
continue the witch-hunt as LD 1765 proposes to do, or if, like Margaret
Chase Smith, you make a Declaration of Conscience and say enough is
enough. Defeat LD 1765 and repeal the fingerprinting law.
Thank you.