I have lost the address of the website offerring the following "meaning " of workplace harassment:
(1) A person is subjected to ... repeated behaviour ... by person's employer that
(a) is unwelcome and unsolicited; and
(b) the person considers to be offensive, intimidating, humiliating, or threatening; and
(c) other reasonable persons wold consider to be offensive, humiliating, intimidating or threatening.
The website does include the reference 'sexual harassment,' which I am not claiming, citing the Anti-discrimination Act 1991, section 119.
I worked at Coahoma Agricultural High School as a reading teacher from July 29, 2004 through May 20, 2005 when the contract year ended. From the inception of employment on July 29 until March 3, 2005, I was what one might call minimally supervised by my immediate supervisor, my principal. His supervisor, the assistant superintendent responsible for hiring me, had strong confidence in my abilities. I have a master's degree in math education and I am one of about 100 teachers in Mississippi who holds National Board Certification in secondary mathematics.
On March 3, I received the first in a barrage of weighty communications from my principal, both written or oral, that continued throughout the balance of my tenure. This first listed ten allegations af classroom malfeasance, student abuse, and school policy vilations. The "requested discussion" of these violations which took place on March 11 was not a discussion but a mugging.
Although I denied each charge in turn, or described the mitigating circumsatnces which mad the charges silly, nothing I said made any dent. Mr. Principal wanted simple yes or no answers to his questions, and he viewed the qualifications I offered as evidence of lying. It was during the course of this first hour meeting, he threatened to remove me from his office. Over the next weeks, he did throw me--- figuratively --- out of his office twice, and on one occassion had two armed campus policemen escort me out of his building and off campus at three o'clock to insure that all the students boarding the buses would witness my humiliation. This dismissal was the beginning of a four-day suspension growing out of his charges --- neither of which were tru and neither of which he proved -- that 1) I conspired with two female students to allow them to go into the restroom to use a cell phone, and 2) I had allowed a male student to enter my room "to speak" without either the student's teacher or Mr. Principal's permission.
In official letters to his superiors, he referred to me as "odd" and "crazy." He did not submit the results of his "findings" relative to the March 3 allegations until late May in which he chose merely to charge me again with five the self-same allegations as those which appeared in the original on March 3.
He submersed me in such a degree of job-related vertigo by his unsubtantiated accusations and allegations that it is no wonder that my classroom presence and performance suffered, deficiencies which he charged on a number of subsequent occasions. In the ample written record of official reprimands, I recall only once his failing to close with a paragraph reminding me that "further disciplinary action" was not unlikely. His formal closing of each letter hypocritically ended with "Respectfully yours." As my father used to say, he cut my legs of and then teased me for being so short.
Mississippi is a "right to work" state. I am not sure that any state agency is capable of helping me. Can something like I describe be brought in Federal court? I'd love to seek monetary damages, but I don't know if such a basis exists. At the least I would like to see him explain his actions to a judge. Going to the newspaper will do no good. The principal is politically well-connected, and I have little doubt that racial tension would engage. Apparently the superintendents are afraid of his power.
What to do? How to proceed? If what I relate her is close to the truth, would such a case be "prima" on its "facia?"
(1) A person is subjected to ... repeated behaviour ... by person's employer that
(a) is unwelcome and unsolicited; and
(b) the person considers to be offensive, intimidating, humiliating, or threatening; and
(c) other reasonable persons wold consider to be offensive, humiliating, intimidating or threatening.
The website does include the reference 'sexual harassment,' which I am not claiming, citing the Anti-discrimination Act 1991, section 119.
I worked at Coahoma Agricultural High School as a reading teacher from July 29, 2004 through May 20, 2005 when the contract year ended. From the inception of employment on July 29 until March 3, 2005, I was what one might call minimally supervised by my immediate supervisor, my principal. His supervisor, the assistant superintendent responsible for hiring me, had strong confidence in my abilities. I have a master's degree in math education and I am one of about 100 teachers in Mississippi who holds National Board Certification in secondary mathematics.
On March 3, I received the first in a barrage of weighty communications from my principal, both written or oral, that continued throughout the balance of my tenure. This first listed ten allegations af classroom malfeasance, student abuse, and school policy vilations. The "requested discussion" of these violations which took place on March 11 was not a discussion but a mugging.
Although I denied each charge in turn, or described the mitigating circumsatnces which mad the charges silly, nothing I said made any dent. Mr. Principal wanted simple yes or no answers to his questions, and he viewed the qualifications I offered as evidence of lying. It was during the course of this first hour meeting, he threatened to remove me from his office. Over the next weeks, he did throw me--- figuratively --- out of his office twice, and on one occassion had two armed campus policemen escort me out of his building and off campus at three o'clock to insure that all the students boarding the buses would witness my humiliation. This dismissal was the beginning of a four-day suspension growing out of his charges --- neither of which were tru and neither of which he proved -- that 1) I conspired with two female students to allow them to go into the restroom to use a cell phone, and 2) I had allowed a male student to enter my room "to speak" without either the student's teacher or Mr. Principal's permission.
In official letters to his superiors, he referred to me as "odd" and "crazy." He did not submit the results of his "findings" relative to the March 3 allegations until late May in which he chose merely to charge me again with five the self-same allegations as those which appeared in the original on March 3.
He submersed me in such a degree of job-related vertigo by his unsubtantiated accusations and allegations that it is no wonder that my classroom presence and performance suffered, deficiencies which he charged on a number of subsequent occasions. In the ample written record of official reprimands, I recall only once his failing to close with a paragraph reminding me that "further disciplinary action" was not unlikely. His formal closing of each letter hypocritically ended with "Respectfully yours." As my father used to say, he cut my legs of and then teased me for being so short.
Mississippi is a "right to work" state. I am not sure that any state agency is capable of helping me. Can something like I describe be brought in Federal court? I'd love to seek monetary damages, but I don't know if such a basis exists. At the least I would like to see him explain his actions to a judge. Going to the newspaper will do no good. The principal is politically well-connected, and I have little doubt that racial tension would engage. Apparently the superintendents are afraid of his power.
What to do? How to proceed? If what I relate her is close to the truth, would such a case be "prima" on its "facia?"
