promulgated a new regulation on the reporting of such incidents and pro-
vided principals with a workshop on this new regulation. Some thought
the regulation robbed the principal of judgment in dealing with matters
within his or her school and opened the door for frivolous allegations to be
taken seriously. So, even though all principals were told to report even the
slightest suspicion of sexual misconduct to a central investigatory agency,
some found it difficult to break old habits of investigating and handling
school matters in-house.
Shortly after the workshop on the regulation, in early May, an allega-
tion was made against a respected staff member by two students. The
accusations were vague—“the teacher makes me feel uncomfortable,”
and no specific words or incidents were reported, even when Mr. Chen
patiently prompted the students with follow-up questions.
Mr. Chen confronted the staff member, who had no prior record of any
sort of incident, and the staff member denied everything and described
how the accusations stemmed from the students illegally using the staff
member’s office phone to make long distance calls, resulting in their
suspension from school and dismissal from a varsity team. The dean
confirmed this. Apparently, the newly installed phone system’s block on
long distance calls did not work on all extensions and these students had
racked up long distance bills of several hundred dollars. The dean was in
the process of notifying the students’ parents.
The new regulations alluded to earlier said that a principal was to
report everything and not investigate allegations of sexual misconduct.
Mr. Chen did not feel a case of what looked like frivolous remarks made
in obvious retaliation fell under this regulation. To him, the facts seemed
clear: The students were getting even for their punishment by making
vague accusations.
In late June, the students’ parents called the matter into the district of-
fice. Two investigators came to the school. Mr. Chen told them everything
he knew. They told the principal he should have followed the new regula-
tion and called this matter into their office, regardless of what he thought.
However, they added that this seemed to be a case of retaliation against
the teacher. They interviewed the teacher and promised to interview the
students over the summer. If they found anything that supported the al-
legations, they would inform Mr. Chen. In the mean time, he was directed
to do nothing until he heard from them.
172 Chapter 13