"Touching students and whispering in their ear are acceptable practices to maintain order in the library," Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Manuel Mendez ruled yesterday. And with that former Stuyvesant High School librarian Christopher Asch was vindicated after years of being stigmatized as a pervert. In 2009 the openly gay Asch had been sent to the rubber room after a student claimed he had inappropriately touched him.
Asch was arrested in regards to the case, but charges were later dropped. It appears that the claims against him came from "a troubled student who'd made several anti-gay remarks" against the librarian before bringing it to the prestigious public school's attention. Asch was quickly sent to the rubber room by the DoE despite testimony from a female librarian who testified she behaved in exactly the same way.
"I feel vindicated," Asch told the Post after Judge Mendez declared him the victim of discrimination. "There was nothing there to begin with."
For understandable reasons Stuyvesant, arguably the crown jewel in the public school system, has been extra cautious about any and all claims of sexual impropriety from its staff since the late 90s. In 1999 an assistant principal at the school pleaded guilty of molesting a 15-year-old student in his office. After that there were a number of fruitless investigations into the actions of other teachers at the school.
