Tag: Buffalo Schools

Trumpadino: Reactionary Juvenile Entitlement

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trumpbaby

The Buffalo News’ editorial board and Carl Paladino talk about “reform” in Buffalo city schools. It’s important to understand how they define that term, which I’ve put in scarequotes. Their brand of “reform” isn’t about solving the generations-old socio-economic catastrophe among the poorest and least powerful in Buffalo’s inner city. It’s about crushing the teachers’ union and privatization of public education in Buffalo.

Expansion of charter schools (not to mention the introduction of vouchers) would represent an historic divestment from public education in favor of private and quasi-private, selective schools which would result in a new form of segregation. Not necessarily based on race, it would, however, segregate the kids who value (or whose parents value) education from those who don’t. It would also be a handy way to warehouse all the kids with special needs into some sort of rump public institution. The Buffalo school board has been dysfunctional for years, and the district itself is in shambles. It’s not about money, it’s about poverty, race, and class.

Park District voters unsurprisingly elected Carl Paladino to the Buffalo Board of Education in May 2013. Paladino’s candidacy and “reform” platform were all but explicitly endorsed by the pro-privatization Buffalo News editorial board.

The News praised Paladino for raising the profile of the 2013 school board election. Its editorial board didn’t endorse Paladino nor his opponent.

His quote in The News on his reasons for considering a run, “I think it’s time for change …,” is on the mark. But his followup, “I’m going to destroy them,” referring to the board members, “All nine of them,” is, well, 100 percent Paladino.

Having said that, Paladino doesn’t owe anybody anything, and that kind of independence is needed on the School Board.

On election day, the News exhorted its readers to vote, and to “bring a friend”.

Carl is the Buffalo elite’s Frankenstein monster. They unleashed him on the school district. Now, let them gaze upon their creation.

Paladino led the fight to fire former Superintendent Pamela Brown, who was replaced by interim Superintendent Don Ogilvie. Although Paladino practically hand-picked Ogilvie to replace Brown, when Ogilvie wouldn’t blindly do Carl’s bidding, Paladino led a fight to remove him, too. Paladino insisted on the retention of someone local to be Superintendent. Someone who could hit the ground running. Someone who, also, would know Paladino’s reputation and perhaps be more prone to follow orders. Even the Buffalo News’ editors thought that was stupid. Administrators, after all, have been leaving in droves.

It’s not unfair to recall that Pamela Brown was given about a year to try and turn around the massive school bureaucracy. Whether you liked her or not, she was never given a chance.

The Buffalo News’ editorial board has grown somewhat impatient with its creation, as set forth in yet another gently critical op/ed piece written in direct response to this email that Paladino sent around:

It doesn’t need to be pointed out that Paladino’s thoughts and language here are unbecoming an elected schools official. Paladino whines and complains about anyone who disagrees with him on anything – substantive or procedural. His hand-picked board President, James Sampson, is now “treacherous” and a “liberal equivocator”, whom Paladino accuses of being too stupid to tie his own shoes. Paladino’s colleagues on the board are, “incompetent idiots”. Schools Commissioner MaryEllen Elia, who has worked in education as a teacher and an administrator longer than Paladino has been an attorney is a “rookie”. Cash was “rammed up [the school board’s] asses” and if Cash doesn’t follow Paladino’s commands and instead “mess[es] with” him, Cash will be “fitted for his career ending casket.”

The time for someone to publicly stand up and simply say, “fuck you” to Carl Paladino is nigh.

Just like the Buffalo News wouldn’t explicitly support Paladino for school board, Paladino never gave anyone a straight answer about whether he would support or oppose the appointment of new schools Superintendent Kriner Cash. One day, he’s praising Cash, the next he’s shopping for Cash’s casket (an appallingly disgusting and objectively offensive threat of violence).

But, on the day that the school board voted to appoint Cash as Superintendent, Paladino was absent; he was “out of the country”. WBFO reported that he was vacationing in Paris. Paris, France.

Put another way, while the Buffalo Board of Education was voting to hire the new Superintendent of its struggling school district – arguably the most important vote of Paladino’s tenure so far – its most vocal and combative member was recreating in gay Paree. Through his absence, Paladino was able to avoid actually taking a position one way or another on the appointment. Talk about a coward’s way out.

(And don’t complain that the trip may have been planned for a long time. So what? This is your job. People ` to do this. You’re a public official and you abdicated your duties when it really counted).

Now? You can’t come back and say Carl voted for Cash if it all ends up being a disaster! By the same token, if Cash is the unlikely savior of the Buffalo public schools, Carl will rush to embrace him, and everyone should remind him that when it really mattered, he was strolling along the Champs-Elysees, browsing the St-Germain, or enjoying the breezy shade of the Tuileries.

The Buffalo News’ editorial board chided Paladino for the content and tone of the email reproduced above. But what did they expect? This juvenile inability to lead, opting instead for a loud string of temper tantrums, has been Paladino’s hallmark for at least the last five years. He believes himself entitled to not only direct the pace, scale, and implementation of “reform” throughout the school district, but to do it without opposition or criticism. When someone stands in his way – even minimally so – Paladino overreacts with insults and threats that would get a schoolkid suspended. The entitlement is palpable. The behavior is inexcusable.

Carl Paladino has time and again proven himself unfit for public service. He is a constant embarrassment to our region. His brand of reactionary toddler-fascism is counterproductive.

But Donald Trump is Carl Paladino writ large. Trump and Paladino are two peas from the same pod. Both New York developers have egos and mouths bigger than the known universe, and the meme now is that they are attractive to a populace that is sick of, among other things, “political correctness”.

At an Iowa press conference, Univision anchor Jorge Ramos asked Trump a question before Trump had called on him. Trump eventually had his security goon forcibly remove Ramos from the room, while the candidate commanded Ramos to “go back to Univision”.  (Trump is suing Univision for pulling out of its deal to broadcast Trump’s “Miss Universe” pageant after Trump basically told all Latinos – and mostly Mexicans – that they’re rapists and criminals who should go back to where they came from).

On WBEN Wednesday morning, a media commentator noted that Ramos was “rude”.  I’ve seen others call what Ramos did, “advocacy journalism”.  OK. Let’s assume that Ramos was (a) rude; and (b) engaging in an act not so much of journalism as political activism. So what? That gives Trump the right to escort Ramos out of the venue?

When the Daily Caller’s Neil Munro interrupted President Obama in the middle of his remarks in the Rose Garden, Obama shut him down,  but didn’t have the secret service remove him by force.

When some forgotten backbencher from South Carolina yelled “you lie” at President Obama in the middle of a September 2009 address to a joint session of Congress, he was not escorted physically from the House chamber.

It bears mentioning that Munro and our South Carolinian backbencher both interrupted President Obama in the middle of remarks about immigration. This is not a coincidence. This is a targeted effort from the right to not only continue to paint Obama as somehow “foreign” and un-American, but also to accuse him of encouraging illegal immigration (the conspiracy goes that all of these undocumented immigrants will somehow magically manage to register to vote, despite not having proper identification, and they will all vote Democrat).

Let’s look at FactCheck.org: Trump says “birthright citizenship” is a huge draw for undocumented immigrants. It isn’t; economic opportunity is. Trump wildly overstates the cost to provide welfare services to undocumented immigrants, as well as the supposed number of crimes they’ve committed. Most visa overstays aren’t coming from Mexico. All of it is based on fear and lies; Die Meksikaner sind unser Unglück.

Trump also renewed his misogynist attacks on Fox host Megyn Kelly, which seems to be a fake, phony, fraud manufactured to bump Fox’s ratings and lead to an inevitable appearance by Trump on Kelly’s show. It’s also unintentionally hilarious because these sorts of assaults on strong, opinionated women comes right out of the right-wing resentment industry’s playbook.

If people like Trump and Paladino are the Republican id brought to life – anti-Obama, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-abortion, anti-regulation, anti-tax, anti-welfare, pro-gun, and anti-“political correctness” – what happened to those alleged conservative principles. These aren’t your grandfather’s Republicans – they’re not Eisenhower people, they’re contemporary Birchers.

“…a reactionary movement, a defense of power and privilege against democratic challenges from below, particularly in the private spheres of the family and the workplace.”

It’s really about who’s boss, and making sure that the man in charge stays boss. Trump is admired for putting women and workers in their place, and it doesn’t matter if he covets his neighbor’s wife or demands trade wars.

 

Insulting the intelligence of your political opponents is akin to forfeiting the argument altogether: you lose. Ordering goons to forcibly remove reporters you don’t like and who aren’t threatening you is fascist cowardice. Trump’s phony war on Megyn Kelly, if it was legitimate, would be the most colossal example of being a sore loser in recent political memory. Like Elsa, let it go.

The politics of tantrum is the culmination of tea party politics – it’s not a traditional ideology, but one based on the emotion of resentment. Their hearts bleed, but only for people who feel put upon by “political correctness” – that radical leftist idea that people should be respectful to one another, and treat others with kindness and dignity.

They have, as it turns out, become a reactionary, emotion-based caricature of what it once meant to be conservative. What was once a mighty intellectual movement led by guys like Goldwater and Buckley is now an angry joke, cloaked in the language of white nationalism led by guys like Trump and Paladino.

People are shouting, “white power” at Trump rallies, and Trump’s campaign reacts by saying they, “want to be proud of being Americans”.

Trump reacts to any criticism by pointing out how well he’s doing in the polls. Bernie Sanders’ rallies boast bigger crowds, and he doesn’t have to stoke the fires of hatred to do it.

You watch this and tell me how this isn’t the equivalent of Mussolini’s blackshirts.

Hey, It Could Have Been “Damn Ukrainians”

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carlThey held the “Yay Carl” rally on the steps of City Hall Wednesday afternoon, and it was sparsely attended. I drove by at around 5:15—Carl was waiting to speak and looking upon his creation—and most of the crowd was made up of reporters and curious passersby.

Carl, of course, went out of his way to promote this rally, sending out two emails to his followers about it in the past week. The Buffalo News reports that there were about 50 Carl supporters, but I question that number—there were about 50 people there altogether.

It was organized by a tea partier from Clarence whom I had to deal with as she worked from January—May to fail the Clarence school budget and elect two wholly unelectable school board candidates. She has no stake in the Buffalo Public Schools, except insofar as she wanted to defend the guy who sent out these emails to prominent western New Yorkers. There is no doubt that some of those emails were racist, many more were hardcore pornography, and all of them were unbecoming a public official, much less one who oversees Buffalo’s educational system.

Her co-organizer is tea partier Jul Thompson, the wife of perennial candidate Rus Thompson. Sources say they’re living in Niagara County now, so query what their stake is in Buffalo city schools, as well. She recently decided that she wanted to re-litigate the authenticity of the aforementioned Carl Paladino emails, and that would be great fun indeed. She also recently addressed the Buffalo School Board and opined on the “insightful” comments of racist white supremacist mass murderer Dylann Roof. Here’s video of it:

That’s pretty amazing to hear.

So, yesterday, she gave a speech to sort of in her own special way explain away Paladino’s “Damn Asians” commentary regarding UB’s International Students.

Hey, everybody! It could have been “damn Ukrainians” that Carl was talking about when he made false accusations against the International students at UB.

But you’ll recall Carl didn’t use Ukrainians because they’re Caucasians—he admittedly had to use a group that looked different. What do we call that again?

There goes that lib’rl media again, askin’ questions and transcribin’ answers!

All of this is a grotesque sideshow of white suburbanites coming to Buffalo to defend the indefensible, especially to tell black people that they really need to STFU about our Carl. You want to like and defend Carl Paladino and the things he writes and says, knock yourself out, but don’t pretend it’s not what it is.

“All of a sudden, I had a brainstorm: Why don’t we have a Pro-Carl Rally and show people in Buffalo how much support Carl really has,”

At most about 50 people, using the Buffalo News’ figure. Then again, most people who work are just leaving at 5.

These people have bought into the Paladino cult of personality, and they don’t so much follow an ideology or type of politics as they do one man. Cults of personality are unseemly; rare in the American body politic, and the easiest gateway to totalitarianism. Ironically—or perhaps just hypocritically—since 2007 these very people have aggressively accused libr’lz of being in the thrall of an Obama personality cult. Now, they organize “spontaneous” rallies of support for their dear leaders and some now back “The Donald” Trump.

All I want to know is, when will they be holding the rally in support of Joe Mascia? After all, Mascia is Carl’s guy. Mascia also owes the Buffalo News over $4,000 for lit they printed for him and he didn’t pay for.

The Buffalo Schools Gong Show

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When it comes to the Buffalo Public Schools, we have clearly entered a period of severe and acute self-parody.

The new majority on the school board – Paladino, James Sampson, Patty Pierce, Jason McCarthy, and Larry Quinn – were ostensibly elected to fix longstanding structural, substantive, and procedural issues facing the beleagured district. Perhaps Paladino and his cohorts are taking a cue from revolutionary Cuba – perpetuate the crisis to remain politically relevant and legitimate. After all, if everything is going smoothly, and the emergency has ended, who needs their special brand of “leadership”?

The past 15 years of schools stewardship have been marked by failed experimentation. The popular and effective Marian Canedo was superintendent for 4 years, and left abruptly before her contract expired. After an interim period, the board retained Dr. James Williams, whom they ultimately had to pay to leave. Amber Dixon was interim superintendent for a year before Pamela Brown was hired to serve from 2012 until this new majority forced her retirement in 2014. She had about two years to try and turn around a lumbering behemoth, and the majority essentially hand-picked Donald Ogilvie to serve as interim superintendent while they performed a national search for a new permament placement.

Ogilvie has barely served a year, and Paladino now wants him fired because … well, here’s what Paladino says,

Paladino said Ogilvie has become an obstacle to making the dramatic reforms the district needs to move forward. Even waiting until June or July for Ogilvie to leave is too long, he said.

“I will be presenting a motion to terminate his employment effective immediately,” Paladino said. “I do what I think is right. I’ve reached the point where I felt betrayed. I feel there was a lot of treachery.”

It’s no secret that members of the board majority have been disappointed in Ogilvie’s performance on the job, saying they expected more sweeping and immediate changes than have occurred under Ogilvie’s leadership. Paladino said Ogilvie misrepresented his position when he met with the board majority prior to his appointment.

Board majority members were clear about their vision for the future, Paladino said, and Ogilvie led them to believe he was on board.

But over time, Ogilvie’s lack of enthusiasm for charter school takeovers, slow movement on school downsizing, and general unwillingness to fire administrators and reduce the size of the Central Office has frustrated the board majority.

“We’ve made some marginal kind of progress,” board President James Sampson said, “but not the kind of progress the community wants to see.”

The “snap your fingers” method of effecting wide, sweeping privatization simply isn’t real life. Paladino may be the dictator within his narrow business interests, but he is now an elected official – a trustee who owes taxpayers and students a fiduciary duty to do the right thing. What we’re witnessing, however, is utter lunacy. This is cloud-cuckoo land, and even Paladino’s own allies think he’s gone too far. The majority may be disappointed in Ogilvie, but not enough to throw the entire district into further disarray and fire him before a replacement has been found. Because to do so would be irresponsible and stupid.

The minority, for its part, is already under constant siege by Paladino’s intemperate and childish mouth, and can do little more than use their own words and conduct to be islands of class in a sea of intemperate privatization. Parent activists have demanded that Paladino resign, and suggest that Carl’s own South District constituents are silent because they’re, frankly, embarrassed they elected him to be a constant, stupid distraction. I don’t know whether or not that’s true, but if Pamela Brown only got two years to turn around this district, why should Paladino get one day more?

“It’s always everybody else who’s the problem,” said the Rev. Kinzer M. Pointer, pastor of Agape Fellowship Baptist Church. “We need Mr. Paladino, for once in his life, to take an honest look and determine that he’s the common thread.”

What if Paladino has made the dysfunction worse, not better? That’s the charge, and it’s quite persuasive. Members of the parent group are sick and tired of administrative and legislative ridiculousness, and calling for a federal receiver to take the district over. What an incredible indictment that would be.

In the end, we’re learning that a functioning, collaborative school board is important in order to effectuate change and improve results for students. Even if you buy into the privatization model being pushed by Paladino and his confederates, the fact that they have so far failed, and that Paladino now wants to fire his hand-picked superintendent for putting students before politics, establishes how words don’t translate into deeds if you denigrate and dehumanize, rather than persuade and compromise.

Ogilvie explains that his job was made harder by the fact that “key positions” were vacant, and he’s had an uphill battle made worse by a distracted, belligerent board.

Buffalo and its students deserve better than this pseudo-reformist clown car. Perhaps it’s time for a receiver to assume control of the schools and render the board as irrelevant in law as it has become in fact.

As for Carl Paladino, he was sworn in to that school board on July 1, 2013. He seldom gives people time to do his especial bidding, so who will call for his expulsion or resignation come July 1, 2015? After all, what’s good for the goose is good for the tea party gander.

Carl Paladino Threatens “Sisterhood”

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Let’s get one thing out of the way: “blurt” is not a noun.

What follows is the text of an email that Carl Paladino sent to four women of color; three of whom sit with him on the Buffalo School Board. The fourth is the board’s attorney.

To: Ms. Barbara Nevergold

Ms. Sharon Cottman

Ms. Theresa Harris-Tigg

Ms. Rashondra Martin

Cc: Everybody

From: Carl Paladino

Date: February 24, 2015

Re: Slander

Over the last few months each of you has slandered me with blurts or the use of incomprehensible illogic and accusations that I am a racist and sexist or that I have a conflict of interest.

Slander may be defined as an intentional tort which means that I can initiate a lawsuit against each of you personally and you may not have the benefit to claim defense and indemnity from the Buffalo Public Schools.

Insofar as I am a public person, in order to establish slander I must also prove malice. Under New York case law, actual malice can be shown if prior to the slander you were put on notice that the slanderous statement is false and is not supported by fact.

This letter shall serve as notice to you that there is absolutely no discernible basis for your accusation that I am a racist or sexist. Further, there are two legal opinions from two different competent, qualified and objective attorneys that show that I, as a member of the Board of Education, have no conflict in dealing with issues involving charter schools.

This letter shall serve as further notice that in the event that you continue to offer false and defamatory statements, I intend to protect my reputation and will take all appropriate legal or other action at my disposal to do so.

Anyone with a checkbook can bring a lawsuit. It doesn’t mean anything. Anyone with a mouth or a pen or a computer can threaten a lawsuit. That, too, is meaningless.  The underlying question is whether the lawsuit has any merit.

Cutting again to the chase, were Carl Paladino to bring this threatened defamation lawsuit against the four women of color who serve with him on the board of education, his lawsuit would not likely withstand a motion to dismiss, because it would be completely without merit. In fact, anyone bringing it should be sanctioned for wasting the court’s time with utter frivolity.

Why? Because the underlying rationale behind defamation jurisprudence is that the plaintiff is protecting his reputation: his standing in the community, his good name. Alas, Carl Paladino’s reputation is not all that good. Sure, some people like him, and the Buffalo News has been his apologist-in-chief for decades, but Paladino is as reviled as he is beloved. Were Paladino to actually bring a slander lawsuit, and it made it past a motion to dismiss, he would by definition open his character and reputation up for scrutiny. The discovery process—the exchange of documents and things, and depositions under oath—would be compelling indeed.

Mr. Paladino accuses Ms. Nevergold, Ms. Cottman, Ms. Harris-Tigg, and Ms. Martin of slander because they have accused him of being racist, sexist, and of having conflicts of interest with respect to board action on charter schools. He threatens to sue them for slander. Mr. Paladino is not, however, a victim of actionable defamation. 

Firstly, the alleged defamation must be a false statement of fact. “Pastor Jones beats his wife,” if untrue, would be slander. On the other hand, “I think Pastor Jones is a violent jerk” is opinion, and not actionable defamation.  

Secondly, insofar as these women of color have made these allegations against Mr. Paladino within the context of their shared service to a school board, their statements are likely immune from any action for libel or slander. 

Mr. Paladino notes that he is a public figure. In the US, it is more difficult for public figures to bring successful defamation suits. They must prove that the false and defamatory statement of fact was made with “actual malice,” which the law defines as “knowing or reckless disregard for its truth or falsity.” But here, is it a statement of fact or a statement of opinion to say that Carl Paladino is racist or sexist? If a statement of fact, is it “false and…not supported by fact,” as Mr. Paladino alleges? 

One need only go back five short years to find ample evidence of Mr. Paladino’s purported sexism or racism. In email caches WNYMedia.net published on two occasions in 2010, there exist myriad supporting examples. 

Racism? Here’s the first batch of emails. Public official and Buffalo School Board member Carl Paladino sent an email in 2008 featuring a video of African tribal dancers and it was captioned, “Obama Inaugural Rehearsal.” An email dated October 2009 shows President and Mrs. Obama photoshopped into 1970s-style “pimp and ‘ho” outfits. It’s captioned, “White House Ball.” Another email showed an image of black males running from what appears to be an airplane bearing down on them. It’s captioned, “Holy Shit! Run, Niggers, Run!” In April 2008, Mr. Paladino, “told an educational gathering that School Superintendent James A. Williams was hired ‘because he was black.'” The Common Council condemned Mr. Paladino’s remarks as “racially divisive.”

Based on these materials alone—which Carl Paladino approvingly forwarded to a wide array of local bigshots, politicians, bureaucrats, and developers—certainly the women of color who serve the Buffalo Board of Education can easily establish that their charges of racism against Mr. Paladino are “supported by fact.”

Sexism? That first email blast contained a handful of hardcore pornography, including a video of a horse having anal sex with a human female. A second batch of emails, published later in 2010, shows more hardcore pornography and degradation of women. One email shows video of a woman expressing breast milk onto a pane of glass, and there’s a lesbian scene that a vocal anti-gay Paladino labeled “awesome.” This current school board trustee sent around a video of a woman getting a Brazilian wax, and another video—from “fistflush.com”—of a woman shoving a bunch of bananas into her vagina.

Based on these two sets of released emails (more exist that have not yet been publicly released), the women of color against whom Mr. Paladino is waging war can easily establish that their charges of sexism against Mr. Paladino are “supported by fact.”

These women of color are, after all, referred to as the “Black Sisterhood“—sometimes by themselves, and sometimes by Mr. Paladino. There’s a significant difference, however. When they use that term to refer to themselves, they do so out of mutual respect, pride, admiration, and teamwork. When Mr. Paladino spits it at them with his characteristic vitriol, it drips with racial animus and misogyny, and it’s not accidental.

All of this comes just two weeks after Paladino publicly tore into Martin, calling her “ignorant” and threatening her license to practice law. This led Martin to make a formal complaint about sexism and racism by the Board of Education to the New York State Division of Human Rights. This is no way, incidentally, to “run a business.” It’s a waste of time, money, and resources to expose yourself and the school board to a civil rights complaint because you can’t keep your own “blurts” to yourself. Uncontrolled, hateful lurching from tantrum to tantrum is not how responsible adults behave in a professional environment. Even if you disagree strongly with someone, you don’t provoke them by calling them “ignorant” or otherwise trolling them.

“He’s gone after every female, African American female who’s an authority,” she said. “He’s done a lot of bullying. It’s typical of what he does. You can’t sit in an administrative position and do whatever you want to do.”

In her complaint, Martin alleges Paladino subjects African American female employees to a “racially and sexually hostile work environment.”

She also named the school board claiming it has taken no action to “admonish or address Mr. Paladino for his comments.”

Paladino maintains that Rashondra Martin has aligned herself with the four African American women on the board against the five-person majority, which is mostly white males.

“These people, devoid of any other plausible or reasonable argument to defend their positions on things, play the race card and that’s just what she’s doing,” Paladino said. “And that’s getting to be a burden.”

Finally, we turn to the allegation that Mr. Paladino has a conflict of interest as it relates to his advocacy in favor of charter schools. Companies associated with his Ellicott Development lease space to charters in Buffalo. Mr. Paladino rightly notes that a few lawyers have examined these dealings and concluded that there is no conflict of interest. That’s because Paladino quickly divested himself of any interest he personally had in these properties and transferred them to his children. Convenient. If his decisions on the board have a direct pecuniary benefit to Paladino’s children, that’s not legally a conflict of interest, but as a practical matter? None of this has been adjudicated or challenged in any adversarial way. The women of color on the Buffalo school board are well within their rights to continue to voice their opinion that Mr. Paladino is conflicted. They are well within their rights to accuse him of such conflict, and to do so in the press.

It’s not the first time Mr. Paladino has been accused of such conflicts. In 1993, then-Common Council President James Pitts told Paladino that he sits “on the top of the City of Buffalo like a vulture on dry bones,”; adding, “Mr. Paladino has mined the political fields very, very lucratively…If you begin to look at his involvement on all of these boards, his involvement is not based on public service but on private gain. Clearly there needs to be a separation of interests.” Pitts said Paladino’s conflicts of interest were “as blatant as Danny Thomas’ nose.” Indeed, in the 1990s, Paladino targeted his ire at African-American council members James Pitts and George Arthur.

If Mr. Paladino chooses further to escalate this fight that he picked by suing these women of color for defamation, it will make for entertaining copy. It will not, however, further any of the interests he purports to be promoting or defending. A defamation suit isn’t going to fix any failing schools, it won’t raise attendance or graduation rates, and it won’t do anything positive for the district’s overall reputation.