Jennings' appointment provides a quintessential example of how government departments and positions created with good intentions more often than not, go awry over time. FOX NEWS has a detailed report on Jennings that includes how his department came to be:
The (Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools) was created by the Bush administration in 2002. According to its Web site, one of its primary functions is to "provide financial assistance for drug and violence prevention activities and activities that promote the health and well being of students in elementary and secondary schools, and institutions of higher education."Jennings' foremost crusade seems to be increasing the amount of homosexual education in public schools as founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). Incrementalism seems to be taking place faster than normal these days. An office created in 2002 to protect students primarily from drugs is being headed by a guy who is more interested in another brand of safety.
That leads to the most disturbing revelation about Jennings in the Fox article. Specifically, that Jennings was approached by a male 15 year-old sophomore for counsel about his sexual relationship with an older man:
Another controversy from Jennings' past concerns an account in his 1994 book, "One Teacher In 10," about how, as a teacher, he knew a high school sophomore named Brewster who was "involved" with an "older man":Based on Jennings' apparent outrage, one would have to conclude that he knew that not reporting the under aged boy having sex with an older adult male was something egregious or illegal. Otherwise, it would be something to be proud of, right?
"Out spilled a story about his involvement with an older man he had met in Boston. I listened, sympathized, and offered advice. He left my office with a smile on his face that I would see every time I saw him on the campus for the next two years, until he graduated."
The account led Diane Lenning, head of the National Education Association's Republican Educators Caucus, to criticize Jennings in 2004 for not alerting school and state authorities about the boy's situation, calling Jennings' failure to do so an "unethical practice."
Jennings threatened to sue Lenning for libel, saying she had no evidence that he knew the student in question was sexually active, or that he failed to report the situation.
Interestingly, Diane Lenning appears to have been vindicated by an audio recording of Jennings that has been captured by a professor at Grove City College in Pennsylvania. Here is a link to the AUDIO RECORDING of Jennings in 2000.
Visit the site of DR. WARREN THROCKMORTON, the professor who posted the audio and get more information about the speech in which Jennings said those things.
Plenty of sick irony in the Fox story but the sickest kind is the allegation that a man who is heading an office that is supposed to protect children failed to do that when presented with evidence that a 15 year-old boy was having sex with an older man.
Way too much sick irony these days for sure.
h/t to GATEWAY PUNDIT