Second Brooklyn Tech Grad Sues DOE Over Ex-Teacher’s Alleged Inappropriate Behavior
A second former Brooklyn Tech student has filed suit against the city Department of Education (DOE) for allegedly failing to prevent and put a stop to ex-teacher Sean Shaynak’s inappropriate behavior and sexual advances towards female students over a period of several years.
The student, referred to in court documents as S.S., filed suit last week in Brooklyn federal court; her lawyer, Jeff Herman, also represents a 22-year-old former student known as V.V., in her January 10 lawsuit against the DOE for allegedly failing in its Title IX duties to provide a safe educational environment free of gender discrimination.
According to the NYPost, the new claims date back to 2011, when S.S. was a junior taking Shaynak’s 11th grade physics lab class.
Shaynak “allowed S.S. to turn in blank assignments, filling in only her name, for which Shaynak would give S.S. perfect grades.”
Known to smoke cigarettes with a bevy of girls outside the Fort Greene school, Shaynak would turn the discussions to sex. “On one particular occasion, Shaynak gave S.S. and a group of other students advice on how to have sexual relationships with other teachers, advising they should ‘put their hands on a teacher’s thigh.’”
Shaynak “routinely gave S.S. long, intense . . . hugs in which he would press his pelvis against S.S. in school,” making her feel uncomfortable, the suit says.
In the spring of 2013, Shaynak walked with S.S. after school one day. During the walk, Shaynak “made sexual jokes and convinced S.S. first to accompany him to his subway stop, and then to Shaynak’s home [where he] stood in front of S.S., took his pants off, pulled out his penis, and inserted it into S.S.’s mouth.”
The new charges join V.V’s claims that Brooklyn Tech administrators ignored multiple reports from staff and members of the local business community that Shaynak had behaved inappropriately with female students in and around school grounds between 2010 and 2012, and that Principal Randy Asher even ignored an instance where Shaynak — dressed in drag — flashed female students at a school Halloween dance.