PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Janet Morgan on Randy Mastro's Support for Racial Justice
9:40:28
·
7 min
Janet Morgan testifies in support of Randy Mastro's nomination, sharing her personal experience of how Mastro represented her pro bono in a case involving her suspension as a teacher for assigning an essay on racism. She emphasizes Mastro's commitment to racial and social justice, and his crucial role in saving her career and financial stability.
- Morgan describes Mastro as intervening like "divine providence" during her greatest crisis
- She highlights that her case from the late 1980s was a precursor to current debates about teaching race in schools
- Morgan urges the council to consider how Mastro has fought for people of color and social justice
Janet Morgan
9:40:28
Good evening, honorable speaker Adams, chairperson, the proceedings, the members of the city council who who are still here.
9:40:46
My name is Janet Morgan, and I'm here to testify to my support for Randy Mastro.
9:40:55
I have to say though, I feel kind of like Barack Obama, who didn't wanna come after, you know, speak after Michelle, And I'm speaking after a a host of people today, I have to say also that sadly Rudy Giuliani has loomed over these proceedings like a Shakespearean apparition, a specter, Van Close ghost to which I would say in the words of Lady Macbeth out damned spot.
9:41:37
We're here to talk about someone who is in 1 Iota like Rudy Giuliani.
9:41:48
Randy Mastro who was my attorney in the greatest crisis I ever faced in my life.
9:41:58
On the morning in the spring of 1990, my phone rang On the other end of the line was the voice of someone I did not know, Randy Mastro.
9:42:12
Having followed my case, my suspension, for now, 2 years from my social studies teaching position in the Malvern School District on Long Island suspended because of an essay I had assigned my students on racism.
9:42:34
Randy was calling to offer to represent me pro bono.
9:42:43
Randy Mastro's call came the morning after a brutal examination before trial regarding the civil rights lawsuit I had, by then, I was suspended in 1988.
9:42:59
I had filed against Malvern.
9:43:03
I was so nauseous.
9:43:06
I was praying.
9:43:07
I would not throw up Walmister Mastro was on the phone.
9:43:13
Divine providence intervened, I believe, and I do believe that.
9:43:20
Because of that, I was able to continue with the call.
9:43:24
The reason the school superintendent involved himself in the matter of an assignment that teacher makes, which is unusual, was that a parent, a white parent, had called the superintendent and complained about my essay assignment.
9:43:45
A week or so after the essays had been graded and returned to students, my share person informed me that the superintendent wanted me to resend the assignment.
9:43:58
Unable, of course, to resend an assignment might chair person returned with the order now, discount the students grades, the grades that they had made on the essay.
9:44:15
Apps served an order unthinkable to even consider such.
9:44:21
I refused.
9:44:24
On the Friday of the beginning of the Memorial Day weekend, the superintendent's Terry came to me at the end of the day with a letter informing me of my suspension.
9:44:35
My students' 5 classes would return to class on Monday, their teacher gone.
9:44:42
1992 years into the suspension, the state commission of education made his ruling that Malvern had made an impermissible intrusion into my classroom.
9:44:56
And ordered my reinstatement to my teaching position.
9:45:00
That would not be the end from Malvern, appeal the commissioner's ruling to the Supreme Court of the state of New York.
9:45:12
This was when Randy Massaro assumed all matters related to my cases with a passion for right and a consummate zeal with social justice and the skill of one of the nation's best.
9:45:31
Randy Mastro traveled to Albany to argue my case before the Supreme Court there.
9:45:43
Consider that three and a half decades before what is branded and besmirched now as DEI hiring of blacks, me, and CRT critical race teaching a time when across this nation, my essay, may likewise be banned.
9:46:08
It is deja vu.
9:46:11
My case, a precursor, three and a half decades ago, before.
9:46:20
There's no doubting certainly in my mind that Randy Mastro had he not come into my life I would have had no more career.
9:46:35
I was financially destitute when I mortgaged my my home.
9:46:42
I'm I was single at that point.
9:46:46
I had a mortgage.
9:46:47
I mortgaged my home again.
9:46:51
Had he not come into my life and taken my cases over, I would not have had a career at age forty eight, still a few years at that point before retirement, I would have remained financially destitute.
9:47:14
In addition to the fact that he the fight for me, he won the case before the Supreme Court.
9:47:25
And He also represented me on my civil rights case and managed a won a settlement for me that restored me to, you know, financial health.
9:47:53
I I hope in spite of some of the things that have been said here today, you will seriously consider people like me, you know, people of color.
9:48:04
I mean, this is a man who fights for people of color.
9:48:08
I believe you can entrust into into him the position.
9:48:14
I believe he will fight for all people, certainly fighting for people for of color, racial justice, social justice, and thank you very much for your consideration.