#jcboe

  When educators publically denigrate students shouldn't they be held accountable? Well, the Superintendent of Jersey City Public Schools, Dr. Charles T. Epps, vilified adolescent females by designating them his district's "worst enemy"and, yet, he remains on the job. Epps should be censured.

Epps's attack on "young girls" is an ethical violation of major proportion. During a speech he presented to the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance of Jersey and Vicinity, he verbally attacked JCPS students. "The young girls are bad. I don't know what they're drinking today, but they're bad," Epps assailed. He went on to praise volunteers from the corporate sector who serve as mentors who have "signed up to help even the dirty, nasty, bad kids."

Educators across the country have spewed cutting invectives similar to Epps and their jobs are in question as a result. For example, Brooklyn educator Christine Rubino is now facing the possibility of termination on the basis of "conduct unbecoming a teacher" after demeaning her students on her Facebook page. Similarly, Robert Wollkind, who is a veteran teacher with a 32-year career in Connecticut, is fighting for his job after publically belittling an overweight student. Epps should be held to the same, if not more severe, standard considering that he spoke per his role as Superintendent of JCPS.

Epps's language is abusive and offensive and is certain to have embarrassed JCPS students and their parents. Indeed, Epps's public remarks are without doubt "unbecoming" particularly considering that they came from the mouth of a Superintendent whose noted on the district's website as having "reminded teachers they are not friends of their students; they are their role models." This is an unfortunate case where Epps failed to hearken to his own guidance.

Yet, what is most alarming about Epps's diatribe is the sexist undertone that shaded his comments. He specifically singled out young females -- the majority of whom happen to be black and brown in his district -- as foe. Epps's rhetoric mirrors the sneers of those who have historically imagined women (black, brown and poor) as the cancer eroding the core of the traditional family, as "welfare queens" wreaking havoc on the taxpayer's pocket, and as the "baby's having baby's" who either neglect them or abort them altogether. Epps added to the list a new nomenclature in naming young females in JCPS the "enemy." His actions should not go unpunished.

One can only imagine how young female students are feeling today in response to the vicious remarks of one of their would-be role models. What about the feelings of the parents of the "dirty, nasty, bad kids"? How might Epps's remarks further impact the ability of his students to succeed in the classroom? How might Epps's remarks subsequently affect black, brown and poor female students' senses of self in a world that is already unaccommodating to most of them? Educators are expected to do no harm, to be ethical. Epps's statements are clearly the opposite.