Press Releases
09/01/2022
Attorney General Tong Announces Investigation Into Greenwich School Video
(Hartford, CT) – Attorney General William Tong announced today he has invoked his civil rights enforcement authority to investigate any potentially illegal discrimination or other actionable misconduct related to a video that appears to contain troubling, discriminatory statements that appear to have been made by a Greenwich public school official.“Yesterday, most of us saw for the first time a video that appears to contain troubling, discriminatory statements that appear to have been made by a Greenwich public school official. Today, I am invoking my civil rights enforcement authority to investigate any potentially illegal discrimination or other actionable misconduct related to that video.
Discrimination, hate, bigotry against any person, and against any religion or on the basis of age, is reprehensible. The video is disturbing, and if teachers, school staff, or applicants for education jobs have been illegally discriminated against for any reason, I will take action. As your Attorney General, I will exercise my civil rights authority to protect people in Connecticut who are subjected to illegal discrimination, just I have protected Connecticut’s immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, and others subjected to discrimination and deprivation of rights.
I want to make two points absolutely clear: first, I do not play politics with my enforcement authority, and I do not play politics with civil rights investigations. And I definitely do not play politics when it comes to Connecticut’s schools, students, and teachers. That means I am going to run this investigation by the book and according to our standard procedure for investigations. I will not rush to judgement, and I will respect due process. I am not going to do anything different just because it is a political season and people want to see me reach one conclusion or another. Second, we will conduct a thorough investigation, and review and analyze all the evidence. This will not happen overnight. We will get to the bottom of this and hold accountable anyone engaged in actionable misconduct.
A final note. This is why I asked for civil rights authority. Make no mistake: fighting hate and discrimination against anyone is core to who I am and the mission of the Office of the Attorney General.
If anyone believes they have been the victim of discrimination—at this school or elsewhere—I want to know. You can report to me via our website at dir.ct.gov/ag/complaint or by calling 860-808-5410,” said Attorney General Tong.
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Media Contact:
Elizabeth Benton
elizabeth.benton@ct.gov
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