Lawmaker says Haslett ‘needs to do something’ about drunk-shaming incident

Saying that the details revealed in an investigation of an Ingham County teacher’s “drunk shaming” are “shocking to everybody,” State Rep. Mark Meadows, a Democrat from East Lansing, says that some sort of action needs to be taken.

The Haslett Public Schools “need to do something about this,” Meadows said in lengthy interview Tuesday morning. “This kind of undermines [the school district's] credibility.”

Meadows was responding to a Michigan Messenger investigation of a 2007 end-of-the-school-year party involving a number of Haslett teachers which resulted in a 100-page police report detailing marijuana use, excessive alcohol consumption, an alleged but unsubstantiated claim of sexual assault and the drawing of lewd words and images on the unconscious body of an intoxicated teacher, Veronica Piechotte.

Criminal charges were sought by the Meridian Township Police Department, but no warrants were authorized. Officials with the Haslett Public Schools maintain that without a criminal conviction, there is little they can do about an incident that took place away from school grounds at a private event.

Meadows, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, said that while the district may be limited in what kinds of actions it can take against the teachers, the administration should have been more proactive and accountable.

“This undermines the public confidence in the public education system,” Meadows said. “Just because an activity takes place outside of the school, it doesn’t mean it can’t have an impact on the school.”

Meadows, whose Lansing-area legislative district includes Haslett, said the controversy since the drunk shaming allegations were made public last week has sent shockwaves through the community.

“It is the only topic of conversation anywhere I go and there is a parent from the Haslett schools there,” Meadows said.

The state lawmaker said that the problems with the incident go well beyond the actual party, even if it was off campus and off hours.

“By the time you’re in your 30s, you are supposed to have some maturity and some common sense,” Meadows said. “I don’t think that was shown here.”

“Everyone, including the victim, should have been bounced,” he said. “The marijuana smokers in particular should have been disciplined.”

But Meadows also acknowledged that the case has a lot of ambiguity, which makes discipline difficult for the district.

“I think it’s complicated,” he said. “There’s nothing uncomplicated about this at all.”

He also said he believes those teachers who drew on Piechotte’s unconscious body should have been charged with battery. The fact that Stuart Dunnings III, the Ingham County prosecutor, was ready to do that before he had to recuse himself from the case shows that a legislative fix to better deal with such drunk-shaming incidents isn’t necessary, he said.

Regardless of whether any public sector official — whether it be from the Haslett schools, a county prosecutor’s office, or even the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, which told Michigan Messenger last week that it was monitoring the Haslett situation — takes action, Meadows believes that those involved need to accept responsibility. “There are mea culpas still left,” he said.

He noted that when one of the accused teachers, Tim Beebe, resigned from his high school basketball coaching post, Beebe said he had not done anything against the law, which Meadows said was simply a game of semantics. “Something can be wrong and not be against the law. The real issue is are those involved ready to accept responsibility and acknowledge the negative consequences?”

Democratic State Sen. Gretchen Whitmer, a candidate for state attorney general who represents the Haslett community, noted that the situation is troublesome.

“I think that this is disturbing,” said Whitmer in a statement. “But my concern is that since I am not privy to all of the information to which the prosecutors have seen, etc., I think it would be irresponsible for me to weigh in at this juncture.”