ALBANY — Capital Region BOCES this week filed a legal proceeding against state Education Commissioner Betty Rosa after she reinstated a teacher fired last year for what the district said was using her platform to spread COVID-19 misinformation.
The proceeding, Tuesday in state Supreme Court in Albany County, seeks to annul an “arbitrary and capricious” decision handed down by Rosa last fall that reinstated Adrianna Rickson, a criminal justice teacher who was fired for repeatedly violating district policies and promoting misinformation about COVID-19 vaccinations, according to the lawsuit.
“If upheld, the commissioner’s decision … would permit any teacher to use his/her classroom as a platform for promoting views that are inconsistent with New York state-approved learning standards under the guise of ‘academic freedom,'” the lawsuit states.
Rickson, who was hired on a probationary basis in 2019, was terminated after she handed out an extra credit assignment last January to students in her Criminal Justice 2 class that asked them to listen to an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, a popular controversial podcast, featuring Dr. Robert Malone — a scientist who has come under fire for repeatedly spreading misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines.
Fact-checkers identified a litany of false or misleading claims made during the three-hour episode, including a claim that vaccine mandates violate the Nuremberg Code.
Malone, who has also compared the vaccine mandates to persecution...
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