Controversy Over Rhee Now to Include Sex, Congress
A congressional report issued yesterday by two ranking Republicans suggests that schools chancellor Michelle Rhee performed "damage control" for her now-fiance Kevin Johnson during investigations into Johnson's alleged sexual misconduct and misuse of Americorps funds at the St. Hope charter school he founded in Sacramento.
Johnson, an ex-NBA player, is currently mayor of Sacramento. Rhee confirmed that the couple got engaged earlier this month.
According to the New York Times, "The report does not accuse Ms. Rhee, who was on the board of the school, of any wrongdoing, and her spokeswoman, Jennifer Calloway, said it 'rehashes old allegations that have long since been dismissed and deemed meritless.' " Rhee resigned from the St. Hope board before beginning her work as schools chancellor in D.C. in 2007; reports of her romantic involvement with Johnson only began to surface last winter. However, given the contentious atmosphere around Rhee's reform efforts here in the District, it is likely this report, and the national attention it has received, will energize her opponents.
The report [PDF], released by Sen. Charles E. Grassley, and Rep. Darrell Issa, criticizes the Obama administration's firing of Gerald Walpin, the AmeriCorps inspector general, as being politically motivated, in part because of Walpin's investigations of Johnson, a former NBA player and prominent Obama supporter. The White House has countered that Walpin, 78, was "incompetent and had behaved bizarrely". The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that Walpin, who was a Bush appointee, "is receiving free help from a conservative public relations firm associated with the Swift boat ads that opposed Democrat John F. Kerry in the 2004 presidential election."
Yesterday's congressional report was released along Walpin's orginal investigation on St. Hope, which includes interview notes suggesting that Rhee stepped in after an Americorp volunteer complained of unwanted sexual advances from Johnson. At least two other instances of inappropriate behavior by Johnson are also described, although it is unclear if Rhee was aware of them. (City Paper's Mike Debonis has all of those details. They're pretty gross.)
Jacqueline Wong-Hernandez, a former St. Hope teacher (not the accuser), told federal investigators that Rhee contacted her after the allegations were first raised to find out what had happened, and told her "she was making this her number one priority and she would take care of the situation." Later, Wong-Hernandez heard that Johnson's lawyer had met with the accuser, and the complain had been dropped. According to the IG report, a week later, when the accuser decided to leave the program because of "financial and family reasons", Johnson confidentially offered her $1,000 a month until the end of the program, which was declined. Wong-Hernandez later quit St. Hope, she says in part because of the handling of the incident.
Earlier this year, the acting United States attorney for Sacramento found that Johnson had committed "no criminal wrongdoing", and the school agreed to pay $424,000 to settle accusations that it failed to follow terms of the AmeriCorps grants.
It's unclear as of yet just what the fallout will be from all of this, and how that will impact Rhee's reform efforts in the District, particularly as next year's mayoral election heats up. On the one hand, it's hard to just dismiss the complaints against Johnson, but the political backdrop to the whole thing suggests certain amount of posturing. Much of the coverage of the report has focused on Rhee, despite the fact that her actual involvement, beyond her personal connection to Johnson, is pretty slim. Her national celebrity may actually hurt her here. Jeff Smith, director of school advocacy group D.C. Voice, told the Examiner, “I think her detractors may use it as another part of their case for why she’s unfair, but I don’t see it as having relevance on her philosophy or approach or management of the school system.” But if the commenters on the Post's story about the scandal are any indication, Rhee's critics aren't going to let this go anytime soon.
Filed in News and tagged DCPS, Kevin Johnson, Michelle Rhee, schools, St. Hope