Fired Teachers Seek Appeal in Austin Graff Lawsuit

By Michael Kane

This case, Broecker v. NYC DOE, represents nearly 100 tenured NYC educators suing NYC, Unions and other parties for illegal enforcement of the covid vaccine mandate. They have been dismissed in the lower federal court and are now looking to appeal but can’t do so without financial assistance.

Please consider donating to help this case move forward: https://www.givesendgo.com/dueprocess4educators

Below is a summary from the attorney on the case, Austin Graff. – Michael Kane

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On March 30, 2023, the Court in the Broecker v. New York City Department of Education, dismissed the action holding that the federal constitution’s minimum requirements of due process were granted to NYCDOE employees who were affected by the Scheinman Arbitration Award.

The Court admittedly and purposely ignored the municipal law and State law defects to the process by which the Scheinman Arbitration Award became the binding force behind the enforcement of the Vaccine Mandate. The UFT/CSA (educator unions) and the NYCDOE were not permitted or authorized by New York State Civil Service Law to resolve their impasse in negotiations over the implementation of the Vaccine Mandate by agreeing to arbitration. As the New York Court of Appeals has held and PERB has opined, there is no way for a school district (NYCDOE) and its public employees’ union (UFT or CSA) to resolve an impasse in negotiations, except at the bargaining table.

Unlike fire and police impasse negotiations, school district negotiations cannot end in binding arbitration. The Plaintiffs now must appeal the decision to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to seek a reversal of the District Court’s decision.

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Our case is Broecker et al. vs. NYCDOE et al. The case # is 21-CV-6387. All the plaintiffs have tenure.

We name DOE/Chancellor but also UFT/Mike Mulgrew, the AFT, Mayor, and Martin Scheinman, among others.

Our case was heard in US District Court, Eastern District of NY.

The central claim in our case is we were deprived of our Constitutional due process under 42. USC Sec. 1983. We allege collusion, aiding and abetting between UFT, DOE and Martin Scheinman and that with said actions they violated our Constitutional right to due process and to our protected liberty and our property interest (our careers and income). We said that the defendants should be restrained by the court from withholding pay or terminating employment of all those DOE employees who failed to comply. (Additionally we argue that the defendants did not follow any established procedure to add taking a Covid vaccine as a DOE condition of employment). At the core of it is that we argue that Martin Scheinman never had the authority to negotiate or settle the matter of the vaccine mandate with the DOE and the UFT, and that the mandate and the subsequent violations of our Constitutional rights were accomplished through collusion between the defendants to deprive us of our rights and our property interest.

Our case was dismissed with prejudice by judge Kiyo Matsumoto. She granted the defendants motion to dismiss. They filed the motion to dismiss months ago, before the “end” of the “vaccine mandate” was a thing, and we filed a counter-motion to continue. The thrust of her dismissal is that the defendants provided procedures to seek relief and thus the defendants’ procedures offered us all adequate Constitutional due process. Of course we disagree and we believe that her argument is flawed.

I have attached the full decision if you want to see it.

The large majority of our plaintiffs want to appeal and we need to raise money within 30 days to do so (30 days from 3/31/23). We need to raise half of the legal fees within the next 14 days–half is $20,000. We are asking for help from the anti-mandate community and could really use your help to get the word out. Many of us like me have no ability to pay now and need help to make the deadline for appeal, thus we set up the GiveSendGo.

42-page PDF here

Source: Teachers for Choice

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