(Timeline is here.)
(This report suggests it was all a setup -- and it wasn't true, anyways.)
It would be easy to dismiss this as a case of mistaken identity -- until a second person corroborated Barrett's story, admitted his part in the gang and said that the superintendent, Lance Hindt, was "one of the biggest bullies that ever went to this junior high." (Watch the video for that -- it's at the very end of the link above.) Then a circuit court judge, who had gone to high school with Hindt, remembered Hindt as a "vicious bully." (More stuff here, if you can stomach it.)
Barrett, the person who brought all this up at the meeting, said he needed to face his tormenter -- that they were kids and "kids make mistakes," and he hoped the superintendent would at least acknowledge what he'd done. Hmmm...
Now here's the kicker.
Instead of doing the right thing and admitting that maybe, just maybe he might have had something to do with all this --
and apologizing for anything he may have done or said, as a "stupid kid" (what his accuser acknowledged: "We were kids -- we were all stupid") -- which is really what his accuser wanted --
Superintendent Lance Hindt denounced the whole situation as a smear campaign and resigned, as of Jan. 1, 2019. (His exact words: "half-truths, viral videos, edited tapes, false statements.")
Then more evidence started to surface.
Papers about an old assault suit reappeared -- dismissed, after Hindt, age 18, paid $30,000 to the man he beat up. Unfortunately, he chose to abandon this guy while he lay unconscious on the street -- a man who is now a Houston banker. ( Next time, Mr. Hindt, pick less influential people to beat on. It's easy to dismiss one man, dressed in working clothes who stands at the lectern. Harder to dismiss more people coming forward, including the testimony of bankers and judges.)
Then there are allegations that Hindt plagiarized his doctoral paper. (That investigation is still going on, via the University of Houston.) More people came forward, to accuse him of bullying actions as an assistant principal and principal. (One of Hindt's primary platforms has been, apparently, an anti-bullying initiative these past years.)
Hindt was paid $750,000 as a severance package by the school board, for apparently agreeing to resign. (The vote was 7-0. If I were a parent in that school district, I'd be asking some questions about that.)
"Only God can judge me," he announced. He also mentioned "My Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ." As a Christian, that's my boss, too -- but there never was an 'out' clause for Christians for not being held responsible for their actions here on earth.
(He did apologize -- to his staff. He asked them, without admitting or denying his past actions, to judge him for the man he was today -- not the person of 40 years ago. Which makes sense, but...)
"This is not what I wanted at all. I'm horrified," Greg Barrett said. "I'm disappointed that he resigned. He was the right person to fix this problem."
All he wanted, Barrett said, was a simple 'I'm sorry.'
So why couldn't Hindt say it?
I keep reminding myself that these were actions of young kids years ago...this situation should have been dealt with in adult fashion. Both Hindt and Barrett expressed a willingness to meet with each other privately. Why didn't they?
What's the conclusion of this whole mess?
Acting like a jerk as a kid was wrong -- but understandable. Bullying and other actions as an adult -- now that's a different story. And all started by a man, obviously with a lot of work credentials, whose first response should have been understanding and compassion. The statement he initially released showed the same lack of understanding, and quickly dismissed actions as "simply not true" that had obviously tormented this guy for years. (Oops, maybe it was true, after all.)
Sure, Barrett/Gay should have let it go and moved on. Perhaps, after confronting Hindt in public, he now can. (He's also probably facing a civil suit, with attendant lawyer costs...though experts say that Hindt, being a public figure, would probably lose.)
Money, time, energy wasted on all sides... because a man didn't want to admit what he should have: that he was not "a perfect person:" When he finally did, it was pretty much too late.
"I certainly wasn't as a teenager and I am not as an adult," Hindt said. "When I was young and dumb, I did dumb things." He credited religious faith in his twenties as finally making him a better person. (See above.)
So why couldn't he have admitted that up front? Why couldn't he have produced a simple apology for the man standing before him at the school board meeting? Was it pride, or arrogance?
Sad, sad, sad.
* * * * * * * * *
"This is the first time I've ever heard of, that a school bully was actually held responsible for his actions years later," the Brick mused.
I was thinking about this while rereading Be Good: The Ethics of Everything by Randy Cohen. Cohen wrote "The Ethicist" column for 12 years for the New York Times Magazine, answering questions on everything from barking dogs to home foreclosures. This book is full of them, sorted out into categories ranging from 'Community' to (of course) 'Love & Sex.' It's a great bathroom read, with plenty of short sections you can absorb -- then come back to later.
Cohen was also one of David Letterman's comedy writers, and points out that the sex scandal Letterman found himself embroiled in not only was fueled by 'willing partners,' but Letterman himself 'fessed up to it. (Are you paying attention, Harvey Weinstein?) However:
"...the ability to apologize eloquently does not mean that the regretted conduct never occurred, nor does it place that conduct beyond discussion.
"And it must be noted that Dave's genuinely impressive candor was exhibited only after he got caught."
Needless to say, Mr. Cohen has had his share of angry people confronting him:
"For the first few years of the column, I tended to respond in kind... When I received a particularly hateful screed... I would think, You call that vicious? It's amateur work. I am a trained professional; I can compose something a hundred times more venomous. And I would.
" Parents and teachers tell us that we'll feel bad if we respond brutally to someone who is brutal to us. It's not true. When I sent one of my tormenters a savage response, I felt great. It is a pleasure to thrash a bully. (And by 'bully,' I mean anyone who is unkind to me.) But it is an ineffectual pleasure, one that solidifies disagreement, makes enduring enemies, changes nobody's thinking... And so eventually I forsook the pleasures of the punch-up for another strategy: a soft answer turneth away wrath (Proverbs 15:1).
" Turns out, it doth.
" I began ignoring the tone of even the angriest e-mails and responding courteously to the sense of it. Just as an experiment. Often, even the author of a barbarous e-mail would then reply politely. Sometimes he'd apologize for his initial intemperance. My first, unworthy, thought, I'd hit upon a cunning way to make my tormenter feel guilty while I seized the moral high ground. Brilliant!
" My second thought was to recall that Lincoln had invoked something similar in March of 1861, in his First Inaugural Address, in regard to a vastly graver conflict, urging 'Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection,' and appealing to 'the better angels of our nature.'"
" Even for something as modest as an e-mail argument, that's excellent advice."
Superintendent Hindt, were you listening? Apparently not.
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