The Issue Whether the Education Practices Commission should take disciplinary action against respondent for the reasons alleged in the administrative complaint?
Findings Of Fact Respondent Bobby Leon Murphy holds a Florida teacher's certificate, No. 170876. He began his teaching career in Mobile, Alabama, at Satsuma High School, in 1958. Now 55 years old, he has served as aquatic coordinator for Escambia County and director of the Washington Aquatic Center since June 14, 1982, twelve days before he lost the eldest of his three sons in an automobile accident. Sherman L. Robinson, the black principal of Washington High School, was among the first to learn of the tragedy, and came promptly to the family home to console his friend, "Bobby Lee," as he is known. It was Mr. Robinson to whom Coach Murphy referred, on some ten occasions, in conversations with another employee of Washington Aquatic Center, as a "big nigger" or simply as a "nigger." He once called his principal "just a big nigger trying to throw his weight around." T.102. Wife To Blame Mr. and Mrs. Murphy were with friends at Rosie O'Grady's in Pensacola on April 14, 1968, when a dispute arose between respondent Murphy and another patron. The gentlemen decided to pursue the matter outside. Mr. Murphy landed the first and perhaps only blow before a policeman ended the altercation and placed him under arrest for "assault with hands." Eventually, Mr. Murphy paid a $50.00 fine on account of the incident, or so he testified at hearing. On his application for extension of certificate dated March 24, 1987, after these proceedings began, Mr. Murphy reported that he had been fined $75.00. The application for extension was granted. On three previous applications for teacher's certificates, dated November 16, 1971, July 27, 1973, and April 4, 1983, there was no mention of the arrest. In response to the question, "Have you ever been arrested or involved in a criminal offense other than a minor traffic violation?" the box in front of "No" had been checked on the 1971 and 1973 applications. On the 1983 application, "No" had been checked in response to the question "Have you ever been convicted or had adjudication withheld in a criminal offense other than a minor traffic violation or are there any criminal charges now pending against you other than minor traffic violations?" Petitioner's Exhibit No. 2. Respondent testified that he had not meant to mislead anybody in submitting the applications he did after his arrest and before the present charges were laid. It was just that his wife had filled earlier applications out, he explained, while he himself had completed the most recent and only accurate application. Life at Poolside Mr. Murphy has coached swimming for many years, and enjoys an interstate (Florida and Alabama) reputation as a good swimming coach. Since former Superintendent Stokes named him director of the Washington Aquatic Center, however, his principal duties have been administrative. The Center was built on the campus of Washington High School, but is used by junior and senior high students from other Escambia County schools as well. The office Mr. Murphy occupied at the Center opens onto the pool deck, and the office door is mostly glass. Almost all of the office is visible from outside, but passersby cannot see the corner of the office into which he retreated one day in the summer of 1982, while addressing Susan Lynn Graham, then 18 years old, and the only other occupant of the office. He urged her to join him in the corner and rub her "boobs" against him, but she declined. Ms. Graham was a pool attendant at the time. Mr. Robinson, the principal, had delegated to Mr. Murphy authority to hire and fire pool attendants, young people paid minimum wage to work as lifeguards, and to help with teaching, coaching and keeping the Center clean. Coach Murphy regularly hugged the pool attendants and others, and Ms. Graham was no exception. A witness described these as lateral, as opposed to frontal, hugs. Standing beside the recipient, he placed an arm around his or her shoulders, and pulled, squeezing the near shoulder against the side of his chest. For the most part, these hugs were gestures of friendship, encouragement or commendation, but, in Ms. Graham's case, he whispered into her ear when he hugged her, "I'm going to make love to Sue Graham," or "I'm going to make love to Sue Graham before the summer's over," or "Don't you forget it, baby, or something of the kind. This happened repeatedly. Once, when just the two of them were in his office, he told her he would eat her "pussy," then stuck his tongue out, emitted a "kind of laugh," (T.22) and shook his head. At this, she left the office, shocked and embarrassed, telling him not to say things like that. He seemed to her always to be leering: sometimes he raised his eyebrows. He offered to meet her "any time" at his condominium. (T.24) He once told her he liked watching her jump up and down on the diving board and seeing her bosom bounce. Ms. Graham told co-workers that Mr. Murphy had made passes at her and asked them not to leave her alone with him. When she complained to Mike Haas, however, the Center's assistant director, he seemed to support Mr. Murphy. She decided against reporting Mr. Murphy's attentions to his superiors, and left her job in May of 1983. She "just decided that it was not worth the pressure [she] was under to continue to work there." (T.24) Ann Cobb Palmer had known Mr. Murphy since she was eight years old, maybe even longer. He had been her swimming coach. Hired by respondent as a lifeguard at Washington Aquatic Center, she felt intimidated and degraded one day at work when, in her presence, he said to two young men, Messrs. Haas and Martin, "I wonder what she would be like in bed." (T.70) Eighteen years old at the time, she burst into tears and left his office crying a few days later when, again in her hearing, Coach Murphy told Mike Martin, "I would like to get in her pants." Id. Teresa Hunter Murphy, no relation to the respondent, was a married college graduate when she began working as a swimming instructor at Washington Aquatic Center in the summer of 1982. In October of 1982, as she and Coach Murphy sat in his office, he "stared at [her] crotch and said, mmmmm, I think I could eat on that thing for a few days," (T.96) adding, "[B]aby, we'd have to send out for room service." (T.97) When she expressed dismay at his language and stood up to leave, he asked, "[D]on't you like it?" Id. During the three years or so she worked under respondent's supervision, Ms. Murphy's first marriage deteriorated and eventually came to an end. Coach Murphy, who was aware of her marital problems, said to his assistant Mike Haas, "Mike, Teresa is not getting any, can you handle that[?]" (T.94) Another time, Coach Murphy asked her if she would "go for" dating or having sex with either of the "PE coaches" at Washington High School. Looking at a picture of the Washington High School girls' swim team one day, Coach Murphy pointed out to Ms. Murphy that "several of the girls on the front row had shown through their bathing suits" (T.95) and said it "looked like they had been busted wide open . . . [meaning that they] were not virgins any longer." (T.96) The pool attendants had no guarantee of continued employment and, at least one, Katherine Taylor, was dismissed by Mr. Haas, who said he and Coach Murphy had reached the decision together. At the time, the only explanation he offered was that it was for her benefit. (T.53) At hearing, however, he testified she was fired because she had been unwilling to clean a toilet. Keys to the Condo Coach Murphy hired Julie Ann Halpern Schweitzer, 22 years old and unmarried, to work at the Washington Aquatic Center as a lifeguard in September of 1983. At school board expense, he sent her to a coaching convention in Orlando in the company of his assistant, Mike Haas, Teresa Murphy, and Mike Byrd, who did not work at the Center. Upon their return, Coach Murphy summoned Ms. Halpern, as she then was, to his office. When she arrived, Mike Haas was already there. Coach Murphy asked if anything had happened on the trip, "insinuating hanky-panky and asked Mike Haas if he made a pass at [Ms. Halpern]. Mike Haas said he had tried. But the truth was, he never had tried." (T.42) After more banter in "almost a sick joking manner," Id., Coach Murphy handed some keys to Ms. Halpern, saying, "Julie, these are the keys to my condo. I want you and Mike to go out there and finish your business." (T.43) Mike Haas drove Ms. Halpern to the condominium and, after she declined his invitation to go inside, to Cordova Mall where they bought a birthday card for a boy they worked with, before returning to Washington Aquatic Center. This excursion took place "on Aquatic Center time." (T.47) After it was over, Coach Murphy called them into his office and asked what had happened. When Ms. Halpern told him they had not even gone inside the condominium, "he was upset very . . .silent." (T.45) "[H]e was silent for two days straight. For that whole week, we didn't get much out of him. We had to walk on eggshells." (T.47) This lack of communication made him less effective as an administrator. Many of the young women working under Coach Murphy's supervision avoided him, even though they needed to communicate with him regularly to do their jobs as well as possible. His behavior toward young women impaired his effectiveness as an administrator. New employees were sometimes told to avoid him. Electioneering Ann Cobb Palmer, a pool attendant named Daniel, Katherine Taylor, Teresa Murphy, Mike Haas, Michael T. Martin all were directed by respondent to display signs or make telephone calls on behalf of Charles Stokes, the former superintendent of schools who sought reelection, and did so, many of them on school time, during the fall of 1984. Respondent gave Renee Branum permission to make telephone calls on behalf of the Stokes candidacy on school phones during her working hours. (T.305) Students Not Involved As far as the evidence showed, respondent never propositioned any student or discussed any sexual topic with a student. He testified without contradiction, "I don't even have sex, and I haven't for the past three or four years." (T.295)
The Issue Should the State of Florida, Education Practices Commission (EPC), impose discipline against Respondent, who holds Florida Educator's Certificate No. 292611, for the alleged violations set forth in EPC Case No. 001-0121-A?
Findings Of Fact Stipulated Facts: Respondent holds a Florida Educators Certificate (FEC), number 292611, in the areas of General Science, Physical Education, and Middle Grades. Respondent's FEC is valid through June 30, 2005. At all times relevant to this proceeding, Respondent was employed as Physical Education Teacher at Sante Fe High School (Sante Fe) in the Alachua County School District. Additional Facts: During his career Respondent has been employed by the Alachua County School Board as part of the instructional staff. His career spans 33 years. Respondent taught physical education at Sante Fe from 1974 through 2001. In the last two years he has taught at Bucholz High School in drivers education. The physical education curriculum at Sante Fe, to include the spring of 2000, emphasized physical activity for the students three days a week. Two days a week were devoted to classroom instruction. The physical fitness instruction emphasized cardio vascular conditioning and building endurance in the participants' muscles. The physical activity took place both inside the gymnasium and outside on the school grounds. The physical activity involved stretching before engaging in the prescribed activity. A typical physical fitness class taught by Respondent would have had 35 to 48 students. In the spring of 2000 two of the students taught physical education by the Respondent were E.C. and L.B., who were ninth graders. On the whole, the proof is not clear and convincing that Respondent inappropriately stared at the students E.C. and L.B. when they were doing their exercises in the physical education class in the spring of 2000, as they claim. During the spring of 2000 E.C. and L.B. went to Respondent's office to exchange a basketball which was flat for one that was not. After the students asked for a new basketball Respondent replied "well that's not the only thing that's flat" while looking in the direction of the students. The students took this remark to be intended as sexual innuendo concerning the chest of the student E.C. but their impression was gained outside the context of another remark made at that time directed to those students referring to them as a "bunch'a airheads." When the set of remarks are considered together they do not constitute remarks that are perceived as sexual harassment or sexual innuendo as alleged in the Administrative Complaint. To refer to students as "airheads" is not appropriate, however that remark is not the subject of the Administrative Complaint. The comments made by Respondent directed to E.C. and L.B. were overheard by a male student, F.T.B. M.H., whom one can infer was a student at Sante Fe, showed Respondent her midriff where she had been sunburned. Respondent commented "M., you need to put sunscreen on. You're going to get burnt up." No other facts were established concerning Respondent and the student M.H. Contrary to the material allegations in the Administrative Complaint, no proof was presented concerning the allegation that Respondent told female students in his class that the shorter their shorts were, the higher their grades would be.
Recommendation Upon the consideration of the facts found and conclusions of law reached, it is RECOMMENDED: That a final order be entered dismissing the Administrative Complaint in all its counts. DONE AND ENTERED this 23rd day of April, 2003, in Tallahassee, Leon County, Florida. CHARLES C. ADAMS Administrative Law Judge Division of Administrative Hearings The DeSoto Building 1230 Apalachee Parkway Tallahassee, Florida 32399-3060 (850) 488-9675 SUNCOM 278-9675 Fax Filing (850) 921-6847 www.doah.state.fl.us Filed with the Clerk of the Division of Administrative Hearings this 23rd day of April, 2003.
