MARYLAND
Baltimore City Paper
Archbishop Curley and Baltimore Archdiocese sued for firing librarian who reported teacher-student sex
By Van Smith
March 6, 2015
When Archbishop Curley High School science teacher Lynette Trotta was arrested last April for having sex with a student, the librarian who first brought the abuse to the school’s attention, Annette Goodman, was first suspended, then fired, for not reporting the information sooner. Turns out, Goodman claims the school and the Archdiocese of Baltimore fired her “in an attempt to cover up their deliberate indifference to Trotta’s known acts of inappropriate behavior with students,” violating Title IX of the U.S. Education Amendments of 1972, which bars schools from retaliating against someone who reports such abuse.
Goodman’s lawyer, Linda Correia, a nationally prominent attorney with experience prosecuting Title IX cases, filed suit yesterday in Maryland U.S. District Court on her behalf against Archbishop Curley and the Archdiocese.
When Trotta was arrested last April 4, the Archdiocese issued a statement. “A number of weeks ago,” it reads in part, “Annette Goodman, the school’s librarian, learned about the allegation. Maryland law and the policies of the Archdiocese and Archbishop Curley High School require that allegations of child abuse be reported to civil authorities and the head of the school as soon as possible. Ms. Goodman reported the information to the school’s administration on April 1.”
The same day, David Clohessy, the director of the national anti-abuse group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), issued a statement to “urge Catholic officials to fire and denounce–not just suspend–the librarian who kept silent about these crimes for weeks.” Goodman was fired on April 10.
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