To:

Stan F. Mack II
Executive Director
Minnesota Board of School Administrators
Stan.Mack@state.mn.us

C*O*M*P*L*A*I*N*T

Complaint filed against:

Dennis Carlson
Superintendent
Anoka-Hennepin School District
11299 Hanson Blvd N.W.
Coon Rapids, Minnesota 55433
(763) 560-1000 

This COMPLAINT centers on Superintendent Dennis Carlson’s long-term and ongoing failure to uphold the constitutionally-mandated separation of church and state in the Anoka-Hennepin School District.

Carlson’s failure to uphold separation of church and state has resulted in a theocratically-motivated, hostile public schools environment for students who are actually members of -- or perceived to be members of --sexual minorities. Additionally, under pressure from right-wing religious fanatics in the district and beyond it, Carlson has gone beyond enabling theocratically-motivated political gay-bashing within the districts’ schools -- (in itself unconstitutional) -- to enabling Holocaust denial in his schools. District students, for example, have been prohibited from talking about homosexual Holocaust victims. The Minnesota Board of School Administrators is hereby informed that Nazi-era concentration camp prisoners who as individuals were both gay and Jewish were subjected to a heightened level of torture in the camps because of their dual-reviled-minorities status. Carlson therefore personally has participated in denying – in a U.S. public school setting, and on a fanatical right-wing political Christian basis -- some aspects of the Nazi persecution of Jews. There is no place whatsoever in America’s public schools for a Superintendent who allows himself to be cowed by anti-minority bigots who justify their contempt for the minority on a religious basis. In this context, it is essential to mention that the Wehrmacht uniform belt buckle read “Gott mit uns,” – “(the Christian) -- God is with us”. In repressing, imprisoning, torturing and killing gay human beings – including gay Jewish human beings -- the Nazis alleged and believed that the Christian God was on their side.

In umpteen public statements, Carlson has expressed his unconstitutional idea that faced with unconstitutional pressure from anti-gay religious bigots, his duty as a licensed Minnesota school administrator must involve appeasing the fanatical religious bigots enough to constitute a “compromise” and/or “a balance,” against what he should have, by contrast, believed is a professional and constitutional obligation to protect minority members in his schools against all forms of theocratic malice and hostility. If religious bigots are making unconstitutional demands of a public school Superintendent, it is improper and unprofessional for the Superintendent to yield to any of the bigots’ religiously-motivated demands. If the pressures from the theocratic bigots have by chance been more than Carlson personally has been able to counter, then Carlson should have appealed to higher educational and/or government authorities to stipulate to the theocratic bigots that their anti-gay demands were unconstitutional and therefore could not be implemented in the school district.

To be sure, the theocratic bigots have friends in high places, including, apparently, on the Anoka-Hennepin School Board. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, a notorious political gay-basher, said at a 2006 fundraiser for the You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International “Christian Youth Ministry” that the separation of church and state in the schools is “a myth.” She thanked the anti-gay “Christian youth ministry” and told them she wanted them “in every public school classroom across the state to tell young people, You Can Run But You Cannot Hide.” That group’s leader, Bradley Dean Smith, resolutely anti-gay, has said that Muslim majority nations that execute known homosexuals are “more moral” than the United States. Bachmann is a member of the Minnesota Family Council, one of the theocratic groups to which Superintendent Carlson has capitulated. Two of the FMC’s leading theocratic gay-bashers – extremists who have issued ultimatums involving Carlson – 1) Tom Prichard, and; 2) Barb Anderson – make no secret of their ignorance-fueled, theocratically-based, bullying non-acceptance of gay human beings. Anderson has publicly stated that it is “a badge of honor to be called a hate group.”

Since Carlson became Superintendent in 2009, his failure to maintain the constitutionally-mandated separation of church and state in the schools has worsened. For example, the district’s 2009 “Don’t Say Gay” policy stipulated that staff were to remain “neutral” on questions of sexual orientation. As it played out, that policy forbade teachers from ever saying a favorable word about a gay human being’s gayness. Faced with human rights advocates’, as well as LGBT students’ complaints concerning that policy, Carlson in December 2011 was at least in part party to a proposed “Controversial Topics Policy” that implied that the personal identity of all sexual minorities in the district was “controversial.” In that, one sees Carlson’s unconstitutional capitulation to hateful bigoted religious extremists. In the contemporary world of 2011, civilized beings who consistently respect human rights do not consider sexual minorities the least “controversial.” The Prime Ministers of Iceland and Belgium are lesbians. The leader of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party is a lesbian. The Mayor of Houston, Texas is a lesbian. The Mayor of Paris, France is gay, as is the Mayor of Berlin, Germany. Out gay American political icon Harvey Milk was assassinated in 1978. Why, why, (WHY?) – thirty-four years later – is Superintendent Carlson agreeing with gay-bashing theocrats that homosexuality is a “controversial topic,” and that discussion of homosexuality in his public schools must be limited because theocratic maniacs are threatening him on an unconstitutional basis?

Though the Southern Poverty Law Center has already intervened in the district, the group has not been tough enough in insisting that Carlson uphold separation of church and state in the school. SPLC filed a federal law suit but instead of making demands and going ahead to trial, it has been holding conversational tea parties with Carlson, resulting in the aforementioned proposed “Controversial Topics Policy.” SPLC could possibly be engaging in the district this way in order to attract dollar donations from its supporters internationally, even as the student victims of Carlson’s failings will never see a penny of compensation for their sufferings. That fact adds urgency to the necessity for the Minnesota Board of School Administrators to revoke Carlson’s license, and to see that his replacement consistently respects the separation of church and state in the district, and additionally, that he has support if needed from outside the district to establish and then to maintain the separation.

Through his long-term failures to uphold the separation of church and state in the district’s public schools, Carlson has violated certain teacher, staff and student rights as described in the Minnesota Human Rights Act – which is Chapter 363A of the Minnesota Statutes. Subdivision 1 of Section 13 of the statute involves “Utilization; benefits or services” in Educational Institutions. The law forbids all manner of discrimination against people on the basis of – among other characteristics – sexual orientation “in the full utilization or benefit from any education institution.” Where Anoka-Hennepin students have been prohibited from discussing Nazi persecution of homosexuals -- only because the topic involved homosexuals -- they have been discriminated against on the basis of “sexual orientation” in a way that interferes with their “full utilization and benefit from” their education institution.

Carlson furthermore is in violation of many points of the Minnesota Board of School Administrators CODE OF ETHICS. The very first item of the CODE states that “A school administrator shall provide professional educational services in a nondiscriminatory manner.” In capitulating to the demands of theocrats irrationally and sadistically hostile to sexual minorities, Carlson has not been providing professional educational services in a nondiscriminatory manner to them.

Frankly, the Minnesota Board of School Administrators should be able to assemble sufficient additional evidence, on its own, of Carlson’s egregious history of failing to protect minorities against the unconstitutional encroachments against them from tyrannical theocratic bigots. However, I remain at the Board’s disposal, upon request, to assemble further evidence towards the revocation of Carlson’s license.