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GREENWICH – A Greenwich Public Schools investigation obtained on Friday through a Freedom of Information Request clears former Cos Cob School Assistant Principal Jeremy Boland of claims of discriminatory hiring.
The investigation, which was completed in October 2022, was launched shortly after a video of Boland bragging of discrimination against older workers, Catholics and conservatives was made public. The video, which was released in late August 2022, was the work of Project Veritas, a self-described journalism nonprofit run at the time by James O’Keefe, a conservative political activist.
The investigation, conducted by the district’s Chief Human Resources Officer Jonathan Budd, is based on four interviews with Boland, 38 interviews of past and present employees involved in the hiring process, and an analysis of emails and documents obtained from Boland, including interview questions for successful hires.
The report concludes that the district’s investigation “corroborates that Mr. Boland’s statements on the published video were, in fact, inaccurate.”
In the 12-minute edited video published Aug. 30, 2022, Boland tells an undercover Project Veritas employee that he does not hire Catholic and conservative candidates as “they’re brainwashed,” and said he did not interview candidates over the age of 30 because “the older you get, the more set in your ways, the more conservative you get.”
But during a Sept. 8, 2022 interview, Boland discounted his taped statements, telling investigators that he had embellished his views to make himself “seem more intelligent, more capable, more of an authority figure” to a woman he had met on three occasions through a social media application.
Boland also claimed that he would have “absolutely no way” of knowing a job candidate’s political leanings or religion through the interview process.
On Friday, CT Examiner asked Superintendent Toni Jones to explain the scope and the district’s approach to the matter, the choice of Budd to lead the investigation, and whether the district had interviewed job candidates not hired by the district – the alleged victims of discrimination.
Questions-to-Toni-Jones
In an emailed response, Jones answered more generally that the intent of the investigation was to determine whether Boland had violated district policy and, if so, to recommend discipline.
Toni-Jones-Response
“Most of the questions you have asked will undoubtedly be answered through the other investigations of our system hiring practices,” Jones told CT Examiner.
Two parallel investigations, by Attorney General William Tong and by the Town of Greenwich, were announced in September and October 2022, but have not yet been released. On Thursday, the First Selectman Fred Camillo said their findings would be released in August. The Office of the Attorney General declined to provide a date for their completion of their own investigation.
Jones told CT Examiner that the “Attorney General, Town of Greenwich, CHRO, and the Connecticut State Department of Education would be investigating the issue or system as a whole. We assured all of those agencies that any and all information would be made available to them with our intent to fully comply.”
Jones said that for their own investigation, Budd could “fully and appropriately” investigate the situation.
“The Chief began his appointment to this GPS position just weeks before and has served extensively as a senior administrator in high level positions,” Jones explained. “There was no conflict of interest whatsoever.”
Budd found that Boland was directly involved in the hiring of 25 employees from 2006 to 2022 under the three positions he held at GPS – a physical education teacher at the International School of Dundee, a K-12 program coordinator for physical education, health and family & consumer science at ISD and Cos Cob assistant principal.
In the hidden-camera video, Boland claimed that although he cannot ask candidates directly about their political leanings, he does so covertly.
“The way I’ve worded some of my questions, you can’t really tell,” Boland said in the video.
But in response to the investigation, Boland assured the district that he never developed “a set of questions” to discern candidates’ political leanings.
Of the 25 employees that Boland helped to hire, the district flagged the hiring of one employee in 2019 – a long-term substitute physical education teacher at ISD – as Boland had sent a letter indicating his intent to hire the candidate before posting the job for others to apply.
While the district said the letter was a “procedural impropriety,” they did not find any evidence of discrimination. In fact, they concluded that all of the interview-related documents obtained from Boland’s email, school-issued devices, Google Drive and office contradict the claims he made in the video.
“[N]o evidence of discriminatory intent or outcome has been located; indeed, interview question documents that do exist specifically undercut Mr. Boland’s statements on the published video that he develops and utilizes inappropriate questions related to discerning one’s political and/or religious views,” the district concluded.
But the investigation also concluded that was “impossible to corroborate” Boland’s claims regarding interviews, given “the limitations of the job application software, which allows applicants to retrospectively alter or even remove their electronic applications, it is impossible to recreate the context and documents used for screening by Mr. Boland, or anyone else for that matter.”
Budd recommended that GPS terminate his employment.
“Given the enormity, the gravity, the expansiveness of the statements made by Mr. Boland, it would not seem possible that Mr. Boland could continue serving as a Greenwich Public Schools administrator,” Budd wrote.
After being placed on paid administrative leave, Boland sent the district a letter of resignation, which Superintendent Toni Jones accepted in March. The letter officially went into effect on Friday.
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