Tom Briody is a Democrat candidate for School Committee in North Kingstown, a town whose schools have been rocked by scandals of sexual child abuse which was covered up by the school administration. Mr. Briody is a criminal defense attorney whose practice includes defending persons charged with sexual child abuse and possession of child pornography.
In fact, due to his aptitude for handling these types of cases, he is often assigned by courts as defense counsel for defendants accused of these crimes.
Now, let’s be clear. When Mr. Briody is performing this service inside the courtroom, it is entirely appropriate and necessary for our system of justice to operate since every accused has the right to counsel and a fair trial. However, change the context to whether such a person is the right choice to sit on a committee with responsibility for overseeing the conduct of teachers and coaches and the responses of school administrators in a community with a sustained history of sexual abuse and cover up within its educational apparatus and the question becomes whether someone who regularly represents accused pedophiles is a prudent choice to fulfill the role of a school committee member in this community, given its history?
For this and other reasons, we think not.
It is telling that Mr. Briody chose not to disclose this part of his practice in his June 7, 2022 letter to the chairman of the Democratic Town Committee seeking candidacy for the School Committee. Nor did he mention it in his July 2, 2022 profile to the public, simply describing himself as a criminal defense lawyer, leaving out an important data point voters should weigh in selecting school committee members in November. This is a crucial election and relevant information about the candidates is essential. The voters are in effect “hiring” the equivalent of a board of directors to make and implement policy. If this were a business which manufactures electric cars, would we hire an attorney whose principal practice consists of representing companies that manufacture and market vehicles with internal combustion engines?
Make no mistake. There have been serious issues in North Kingstown regarding sexual abuse, including a case at the high school and a cover-up that lasted for more than twenty years which has been documented and widely publicized in the media far and wide.
Following a series of investigative reports aired on WPRI, these issues have been covered extensively in The Providence Journal, The Boston Globe (which has published no less than fifty articles about the various cases of sexual abuse in North Kingstown schools and the coverups) and even The Washington Post which published an Associated Press article about what has occurred in our schools. One local resident was contacted by a relative who lives in Ireland who became aware by media there of what has become known as the “Fat Testing” case.
According to the accounts of several former male student-athletes, a former North Kingstown high school teacher/coach named Aaron Thomas would “fat test” them in his private office without other adults present in the room while, at his direction, the student-athletes were in various phases of undress, including naked, at which time the coach would reportedly touch various parts of their bodies. Thomas has been charged with second degree sexual assault and second-degree child molestation.
He has pled not guilty, and a trial is pending. The sad saga gets worse. It turns out that the coach had been performing so-called fat testing unabated since 1994 and experts recently consulted by the Town including Harvard Medical School professor and pediatric nutrition specialist at Boston Children’s Hospital, Dr. Christopher Duggan, have attested that there is “no reason to be unclothed during these types of tests.”
A report by independent attorney Matthew Oliveiro, who was retained by the NKSD to investigate these incidents and the administration’s role in dealing with them, states that the superintendent of schools and high school principal “failed to protect the health, safety and well-being of the students under their charge” by countenancing an “athletic department siloed from direct management and oversight.”
Not only did the school administration not discuss the contents of the report with the affected students and their parents, but the report was not released to the public until after the coach resigned under pressure some twenty-eight years after the first incident of “fat testing” and was hired by Monsignor Clarke elementary school which was unaware of his actions while at North Kingstown High School. Thomas was fired by Monsignor Clarke school once the matter was publicized.
A subsequent report by retired Superior Court Judge Susan McGuirl, who found that approximately half of the cases involved “naked fat checking,” blamed “the NKSD for allowing naked fat testing to continue without parental consent even though it was an open secret among students and the community for over 20 years.”
In the wake of these reports, the superintendent of schools and the assistant superintendent resigned. All of this must be seen in the light of statutory obligations set forth in Rhode Island General Laws § 40-11-3.3 which imposes a duty on any person who has “reasonable cause to suspect that any child has been the victim of sexual abuse by an employee of an educational program.” Civil lawsuits have been brought against Thomas and certain members of the school department by the former students and their parents. In addition, Thomas’s alleged abuse and the School Department’s inaction are being investigated by the United States Department of Justice as potential civil rights violations.
Unfortunately, the Thomas matter is not the only sexual abuse case within the North Kingstown school system that has come to light. On June 29, 2018, the Town received notice from a law firm that it was filing suit against the Town for failing to protect its client, a former female North Kingstown special needs high school student who had been sexually abused off campus, but who, according to the notice, was continuously harassed by her assailant and his friends at school even after meetings with school personnel.
The former student attempted suicide and withdrew from the high school which her lawyers claim is a violation of her civil rights. On July 7 of this year, it was made public by WPRI that the U.S. Attorney is investigating allegations against two coaches currently on leave from a North Kingstown middle school and the high school involving sexual harassment and molestation of female students. On September 9, The Boston Globe reported that a Davisville Middle School teacher is under investigation for harassing girls in his classes which some of the boys in the classes documented on a “pedo-database.”
Earlier this year, a book entitled Gender Queer was showcased at the High School library. It is replete with sexually explicit illustrations of minors and is essentially a polemic against traditional values regarding sexuality. Clearly, the Town needs to change the culture in its schools and must implement policies designed to protect and educate our children without obsessive accommodation of gender ideology. Democrats on the state level have been in control of education here for decades. A report recently published by RIPEC concluded that Rhode Island schools are “approaching a state of crisis” with only one in five students proficient in math and one in three proficient in English for their respective grade levels.
Effective change occurs from the top down. Our School Committee is presently composed of five Democrats. In commenting on the aftermath of the Thomas case in a Facebook post, one of the School Committee members acknowledged that “the Committee did not always handle things as well as they could have.” It is time for a change. We need clear-headed school committee members who are not conflicted by their day job of advocating for accused pedophiles. In his Twitter post, Mr. Briody states his pronouns and shows himself to be highly partisan. If elected, the Republican candidates will usher in a new era, one in which parents can have confidence that their children are being properly educated and protected.
