Should threatening a school employee be a felony? Union-backed proposal generates pushback
A little-noticed piece of legislation that would make it a felony to threaten a school employee appears to be moving forward in the Rhode Island House of Representatives, but it faces last-minute opposition from civil-rights groups.
The bill is scheduled for a House floor vote Wednesday, and it's backed by powerful teachers' unions. But it faces opposition from progressive lawmakers who point to concerns raised by the American Civil Liberties Union, and also say it could lead to overly harsh penalties for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
"It worries me that we start to see the kids who need help the most be criminalized at such an early age," Rep. Cherie Cruz, D-Pawtucket, said before voting against the bill in committee. "So we’re fast-tracking them into the criminal system, and [instead] we really want to identify them and get them support."
How the law would change
H 7303, introduced by Rep. Thomas Noret, D-Coventry, would amend the existing law that criminalizes threats made against public officials.
The law applies special penalties for anyone who "delivers or conveys, directly or indirectly, a verbal or written threat to take the life of, or to inflict bodily harm upon, a public official or a member of his or her immediate family because of the performance or nonperformance of some public duty; because of hostility of the person making the threat toward the status or position of the public official; or because of some other factor related to the official’s public existence."
Judges, law-enforcement officers, elected officials, appointed office-holders and state department directors are all considered "public officials" under the law. Noret's bill seeks to add all school employees to that protected category.
Those found guilty of violating the law face up to five years in prison or a fine of up to $5,000, in addition to the weight of a felony charge.
A matching Senate companion bill, S 2683, was introduced by Sen. David Tikoian, D-Smithfield. It received a committee hearing in April but has not been scheduled for a vote.
What supporters say
The two unions representing most public school teachers in Rhode Island, the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals and National Education Association Rhode Island, both submitted testimony in support of the legislation.
Frank Flynn, president of RIFTHP, cited "a super-charged, highly toxic culture toward public servants" visible throughout society. "This abhorrent behavior has recently become commonplace at many school related events and meetings," he wrote. "This includes not only board meetings and assemblies but in school offices and school yards."
Mary Barden, executive director of NEARI, echoed that sentiment and said it was disheartening to see educators "subjected to threats and intimidation simply for upholding their professional standards.""The shortage of teachers in Rhode Island is a pressing issue, with fewer individuals opting to pursue a career in education due in part to the hostile environment they may encounter," she wrote.
Also expressing support were superintendents from Cranston, Coventry and West Warwick, and the director of safety and security for Warwick Public Schools.
Karen A. Tarasevich, West Warwick's superintendent, cited several occasions "when both myself and my family members have been threatened verbally, online, via email and in person." At times, she felt "afraid to the point of filing police reports both in the town I work in, as well as the town in which I reside," she wrote.
Coventry Superintendent Don E. Cowart II said that after he made a "controversial proposal" to the town's School Committee, he encountered negative online comments that forced him to deactivate his social-media account, as well as fake accounts created in his name and "numerous attempts to hack into my existing accounts." While he would not describe the experience as threatening, he wrote, "the hostility was very uncomfortable and left me and my family concerned about retribution."
Why the bill faces pushback
The ACLU of Rhode Island, which also opposed similar legislation that would add election workers to the list of protected public officials, raised a number of concerns about the bill:
It proposes "unduly harsh" penalties when a misdemeanor charge would be "more than sufficient" in many cases. Suspects charged with a felony may be more likely to plead guilty to a lesser offense, "even if they have a good defense, due to the fears emanating from the ramifications of a felony conviction."
The wording of the law "raises serious constitutional concerns" because it is overly broad and "makes criminal a wide variety of hyperbolic comments that may be expressed by people in the heat of the moment and that would not be seen as true threats."
As the law is expanded to cover more categories of employees, pressure will grow to add others. If outbursts against school principals are considered a felony, the civil liberties group asked, why shouldn't the same protections apply to "tax collectors, meter attendants, emergency-room nurses, individuals providing abortion services, and on and on"?
"In sum, true threats deserve punishment," the ACLU's testimony concluded. "But broadly worded laws that criminalize a wide array of protected speech and carry extremely harsh penalties should not be further expanded."
When the bill came up for a vote in the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Cruz raised another concern: Would it also apply to a child who makes an impulsive comment at a moment of heated emotion?
"My understanding is that it doesn’t exclude anyone," Noret responded.
Nothing that "the adolescent brain really can’t control itself," Cruz suggested that schools needed more counselors, not another way for students to enter the school-to-prison pipeline.
Rep. Jose Batista, D-Providence, similarly said that it was too easy to imagine how students of color, especially adolescent boys, could wind up with a felony record due to a misunderstanding.
Rep. Edith Ajello, D-Providence and Rep. David Place, R-Burrillville ultimately joined Cruz and Batista in voting against the bill, but support from other lawmakers was sufficient to move it out of committee.
What happens now
The bill is scheduled for a full House vote on Wednesday, typically a sign that it has enough support to pass.
However, a coalition of fifteen civil rights groups – including the Black Lives Matter RI PAC, Direct Action for Rights and Equality, and the NAACP's Providence Branch – sent a last-minute letter to representatives on Friday urging them to reject the bill.
The groups expressed fear that the law was "almost certain to be selectively and disproportionately deployed against parents in the inner city, not the suburbs, and against students of color and other vulnerable populations," and could criminalize students who make inappropriate, impulsive comments during stressful moments but have no real intent of doing harm.
"Actual threats of harm to school personnel deserve to be punished, but they already can be under existing laws," the letter states. "Passage of this bill, with its harsh penalties and overbroad reach, will only exacerbate the school-to-prison pipeline and undermine the goal of justice reinvestment that the legislature has commendably embraced in recent years."
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: RI bill making it a felony to threaten school employee hits resistance
