Great Barrington — The civil rights lawsuit filed by a former teacher over an investigation of her having a copy of the book “Gender Queer” in her classroom continues in United States District Court.
In a December 8, 2023, incident that made national headlines, the Great Barrington Police Department investigated Arantzazú Zuzene Galdós-Shapiro, an eighth grade ELA teacher at W.E.B. Du Bois Middle School, in response to an anonymous complaint that she had a copy of “Gender Queer” in her classroom. Police Officer Joseph O’Brien was dispatched by the department to the school to investigate Galdós-Shapiro. Officer O’Brien interviewed both previous school Principal Miles Wheat and Galdós-Shapiro as part of his investigation.
Officer O’Brien searched Galdós-Shapiro’s classroom and the school’s library but could not the alleged copy of the book.
Police Chief Chief Paul Storti, who apologized for the department’s role in the investigation, added that he did not believe the department needed a warrant to search the school for the book.
According to the school district’s independent investigation issued in February by Kevin Kinne from Pittsfield law firm Cohen Kinne Valicenti & Cook LLP, the allegations against Galdós-Shapiro were made by Great Barrington resident Adam Yorke, who worked as a night custodian in the school district. According to the investigation, Yorke, who no longer works in the school district as of February, previously made false allegations against another teacher in 2023. Yorke made other allegations against Galdós-Shapiro that were subsequently proven false.
The town commissioned its own independent investigation through Comprehensive Investigations and Consulting LLC out of Quincy, Mass. The results of the investigation were issued in late April. In the report on the investigation, the firm stated, “The actions of Officer Joseph O’Brien, as well as the actions of the Great Barrington Police Department, regarding the incident at the W.E.B. Du Bois Middle School, on December 8, 2023, were lawful and proper.”
On May 14, Galdós-Shapiro filed a civil rights lawsuit in the United States District Court against the town, Berkshire Hills Regional School District, Superintendent of Schools Peter Dillon, Police Chief Storti, and Officer O’Brien. The lawsuit was filed by Galdós-Shapiro’s attorney, Howard Cooper, a founding partner of Boston’s Todd & Weld LLP. According to court documents, Galdós-Shapiro subsequently left the state and now resides in Philadelphia.
Defendants in the case were supposed to file their responses to the District Court on Friday, August 30. Instead, Galdós-Shapiro’s attorneys, Cooper, Maria Davis, and Shayne Lotito, filed an amended complaint with multiple new allegations against the defendants. In the revised complaint, Galdós-Shapiro’s attorneys allege that, at the beginning of the December 2023 search:
Officer O’Brien made clear to Ms. Galdós-Shapiro that he was conducting a criminal investigation of her resulting from her possession of a book in her classroom because the content of the book was, according to him, obscene and illegal, and could not be disseminated to students. At this point, Officer O’Brien had never actually seen the book, reviewed it or researched it. The book is titled Gender Queer. It is an award-winning book with an indisputable educational, literary, and societal purpose. Many consider Gender Queer a lifeline to young LGBTQ+ people, especially because it addresses head-on a critical, though sometimes controversial, issue of public concern, gender identity.
Galdós-Shapiro was an advisor for the school district’s GSA Club.
The complaint states that several educators in the school district kept copies of “Gender Queer” in their classrooms:
Gender Queer was not and is not obscene or illegal under any applicable legal standard, as was well-known to law enforcement or would have been known upon any meaningful inquiry. To the extent that anyone believed otherwise, no one had made a complaint about the book by following the readily available and publicized procedure for challenging classroom content. The district had not banned the book. Simply put, Officer O’Brien had no lawful or proper basis to be in the classroom, to interrogate Ms. Galdós-Shapiro, or to conduct the search he conducted. But Officer O’Brien went further. In the course of his intimidating and coercive, custodial communications with Ms. Galdós-Shapiro, who could not locate the book in her classroom, he asserted that he had the right to search the entire school for the book, he went through the classroom looking at private materials belonging to students, and he ordered Ms. Galdós-Shapiro and the principal to provide the book to him as soon as it was located. Officer O’Brien ignored the fact that other teachers housed that very same book in their classrooms, making no attempt to search those classrooms or interrogate those teachers to remove a book he had so ignorantly declared ‘obscene.’
Galdós-Shapiro’s attorneys go on to make various accusations in the revised complaint:
- Her attorneys claim that Yorke “… did not come close to presenting as a qualified or acceptable confidential source. Among other things, the janitor was already known to be legally averse to the district for his unacceptable performance and behavior including his having made homophobic and racist comments; facts readily available to Defendants before taking their unlawful actions.”
- The attorneys claim that Superintendent Dillon, Chief Storti, and Officer O’Brien all “aided and abetted and conspired … to deprive Ms. Galdós-Shapiro’s of her rights by facilitating Officer O’Brien’s unlawful search and interrogation and ignoring and intentionally interfering with existing and established policies governing Ms. Galdós-Shapiro’s rights to be informed of any complaint made against her before she had to answer questions and to have a representative with her when questioned.”
- Galdós-Shapiro’s attorneys claim that Chief Storti, Officer O’Brien, and Superintendent Dillon all “… worked together to detain and interrogate Ms. Galdós-Shapiro and search her classroom without basis, threatened to conduct a broader search, and ordered Ms. Galdós-Shapiro to do so herself, all because of the false allegation that she had the book (despite her repeated assertions that it was not in her classroom). When Officer O’Brien was unable to find Gender Queer, he ordered Ms. GaldosShapiro to locate the book and turn it in to Principal Wheat. Officer O’Brien further ordered Ms. Galdós-Shapiro to review and remove any other books from her classroom with similar themes.”
- The attorneys claim that after the investigation, the defendants all engaged in “unlawful and outrageous conduct” by making public “…Galdós-Shapiro’s name, address, and date of birth in connection with the false allegations about her made by the complainant, allegations which they had already dismissed for lack of veracity.” The attorneys further claim that the three parties refused to disclose Yorke’s identity “… despite Ms. Galdós-Shapiro, faculty and students being in fear, feeling threatened, and deeply worried about their safety at school. The district only requested the Complainant’s name after Ms. Galdós-Shapiro demanded that they do so.”
- Galdós-Shapiro’s attorneys claim that the allegations left her “…devastated and profoundly shaken, ill, distressed, and fearful, her reputation publicly destroyed. Unable to return to the classroom, and in constant fear about what unknown person or persons had falsely started the attack upon her which Defendants then carried out, Ms. Galdós-Shapiro was forced to take an extended leave of absence from her job.”
- Further on in the complaint filed with the court, the attorneys denounce the town’s independent investigation as a “sham” and “whitewashing”: “CIC failed to address the history of the anonymous complainant [Yorke] as a homophobic bigot. And more. At the conclusion of its ‘report’ CIC simply declared Officer O’Brien and GBPD ‘EXONERATED.’ In so doing, the GBPD further defamed Ms. Galdós-Shapiro and retaliated against her.
Galdós-Shapiro’s attorneys claim that the school district, Chief Storti, and Superintendent Dillon all violated her First and Fourth Amendment rights, her rights protected in the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and her rights as listed in state General Law Section 11H and Articles 1 and 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights.
Defendants’ conduct, as to each of the counts set forth above, was facilitated by and carried out by Defendants joining together and agreeing to inflict unconstitutional injury and took overt actions in furtherance of that goal. Defendants delegated to one another tasks to reach that goal. The conspiracy included affirmative decisions not to disclose the name of the complainant, not to give Ms. Galdós-Shapiro notice that she would be questioned and about what she would be questioned, not to allow her to have representation when questioned, not to establish a legally valid reason not to obtain a warrant, to egregiously disseminate her name and other personal information while falsely defaming her about grooming and other acts making her out to be a sexual predator, by treating her differently because of her race, sexual orientation and because the matter involved LGBTQ+ content, and more. Defendants joined together for their unlawful purpose in a manner which uniquely allowed them to carry out their conspiracy in a way they could not have done individually.
Galdós-Shapiro is requesting compensatory and punitive damages, along with compensation for attorneys’ fees and costs, in a trial by jury.
A response to the court from defendants Chief Storti, Superintendent Dillon, and the town, are all due by Monday, September 30.
Click here for a copy of the amended complaint.
