James O’Keefe’s latest victim: A special ed teacher
In August, an undercover operative for James O’Keefe — the conservative “filmmaker” of ACORN and Shirley Sherrod fame — started chatting up an unwary schoolteacher in a New Jersey bar.
Alissa Ploshnick, the single, 38-year-old special ed teacher, was flattered by the attention from her new 26-year-old “friend.” Over the next two and a half or three hours, they had some drinks, some laughs and apparently some flirtation. At one point, in a conversation about teacher tenure, Ploshnick told the attentive young man how hard it was to fire a tenured teacher. To prove her point, she told her admirer a story about a fellow teacher who had actually called a student the N-word, but the teacher had merely been demoted, not fired.
As happens with many a bar story, the story itself was apparently false. But in telling it, Ploshnick used the N-word herself.
Ploshnick had no idea that she was being audiotaped. A couple of months later, O’Keefe ambushed her outside her apartment with a video camera, demanding to know whether she’d ever used the N-word. The secretly made audiotape became a central part of an O’Keefe video called “Teachers Unions Gone Wild,” filmed in the same bar during a statewide teachers convention.
(In the O’Keefe video below, the Ploshnick segment begins at 0.25 minutes. The video opens with a secretly taped phone conversation between an assistant school superintendent and an actor who falsely complains that his child had been called the N-word.)
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, engaged in a political war against the teachers union over pay and other issues, has cited O’Keefe’s videos as evidence that the teachers union is out of control. Ploshnick was suspended by the Passaic district for nine days and denied a pay raise worth a few thousand dollars.
Oh, and by the way, this wasn’t the first time Ploshnick has made the news. In 1997, as columnist Bob Braun of New Jersey’s Star-Ledger notes:
Alissa Ploshnick risked her life to save the lives of a dozen Passaic schoolchildren. She threw herself in front of a careening van to protect her students and landed in the hospital with broken ribs, a fractured wrist, a badly bruised pelvis and glass cuts in her eyes. She could have died.
The president of the United States, Bill Clinton then, sent her a letter. It read:
“I recently heard about your act of heroism and wanted to commend you for your selflessness. True heroes are rare in today’s world. And, all too often, those who are really making a difference in our communities go unnoticed and unrewarded. I am delighted to be able to give you the recognition you deserve. You are an example for all of us, and I applaud you for your sense of duty.’’
| Teacher who was suspended for remarks in ‘Teachers Unions Gone Wild’ video speaks out |
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170 comments Add your comment
Doggone/GA
November 15th, 2010
9:16 pm
“you’re not trying to say that the left is above pulling similar stunts, are you?”
I wouldn’t make such a claim…but that doesn’t stop me from asking: do you have any proof “the left” DOES pull similar stunts?
@@
November 15th, 2010
9:29 pm
Mick:
Do you have any idea what a special ed teacher does?
I do. First thing we’re taught is never talk out of school.
jack bull
November 15th, 2010
9:30 pm
Dan Rather, didn’t he do something similar to making up a story?
jack bull
November 15th, 2010
9:34 pm
Matt Lauer, along with Bill O Reilly, did some ‘gotcha’ interviews with the last president just last week..and let me say this, i was actually proud of the way Oprah interviewed him. she showed a lot of class(and i wouldn’t have seen it except my mom told me i need to go back and watch it)..she did good.
Doggone/GA
November 15th, 2010
9:40 pm
“Dan Rather, didn’t he do something similar to making up a story?”
Not even remotely similar.
Mick
November 15th, 2010
9:41 pm
@@
You are correct, loose lips sink ships – how true…..bet she’ll learn that lesson…this is not a left or right issue. Day in and day out that lady probably gives those kids everything she’s got, yet talking silly while having a drink at a bar is used against her? What kind of ethics is that? Gutter ethics, raw sewage and this okeefe guy is a sanctimonious puke…
TnGelding
November 15th, 2010
9:51 pm
This O’Keefe fellow is the real menace to society and should be ostracized..
mmm, mmm, mmm, Barack the Liar Obama - BEND OVER, Here comes the CHANGE!
November 15th, 2010
9:53 pm
WOW, another NON-story from Jay. Times must be tough.
@@
November 15th, 2010
9:54 pm
Mick:
I’m not applauding O’Keefe or his tactics.
So…..what do ‘ya think about tenured teachers not being dismissed for using such offensive language. I wonder if they’d be dismissed for calling a kid a fag, homo, lesbo or dyke.
I’m not sure if lesbo is spelled with an “s” or a “z”. Maybe josef knows.
Doggone/GA
November 15th, 2010
9:55 pm
“This O’Keefe fellow is the real menace to society and should be ostracized..”
Not gonna happen. Not as long as he continues to target the “right” victims.
Doggone/GA
November 15th, 2010
9:57 pm
“what do ‘ya think about tenured teachers not being dismissed for using such offensive language”
Didn’t read Jay’s piece very thoroughly, did you?
Doggone/GA
November 15th, 2010
10:01 pm
“I’m not sure if lesbo is spelled with an “s” or a “z”. ”
s – it comes from an island near Greece – Lesbos
@@
November 15th, 2010
10:04 pm
Doggone:
I read it. This is the part that got my attention.
The video opens with a secretly taped phone conversation between an assistant school superintendent and an actor who falsely complains that his child had been called the N-word.
The Asst. Superintendent couldn’t guarantee that a tenured teacher would be fired for using such offensive language. I was disappointed to hear that.
You weren’t?
bank walker
November 15th, 2010
10:12 pm
The N-word? You mean the one that you hear colored people saying all day to each other?
Mick
November 15th, 2010
10:12 pm
@@
You focus on the wrong issue. What about all the good or great teachers? If the teacher calls a student a racial slur or derogatory name, they will be out of the classroom pending an investigation. Remember, innocent until proven guilty? That conversation with the asst. supt. was bogus. I guarantee you that even a tenured teacher who used that language would be out of the classroom pending an investigation. The asst. supt. was dancing around the issue because the caller was NOT the parent – that little item changes everything in how the district responds.
Doggone/GA
November 15th, 2010
10:13 pm
“The Asst. Superintendent couldn’t guarantee that a tenured teacher would be fired for using such offensive language. I was disappointed to hear that.
You weren’t?”
No, I wasn’t. If it had no correlation to how the teacher did their job, why should it? Plus, I am adamantly opposed to blacklisting “bad” words. I don’t use them – but not because they are socially unacceptable.
My attitude is let people say them. Then all who hear them will know EXACTLY where they stand. Plus, anyone who lets such words “hurt” them is abdicating responsibility for their reactions to the person using those words. *I* refuse to give such people that kind of power over ME.
The Leg Lamp is a major award....
November 15th, 2010
10:17 pm
Doggone/GA
November 15th, 2010
10:01 pm
There’s an island inhabited by a bunch of lesbians?
Doggone/GA
November 15th, 2010
10:19 pm
“There’s an island inhabited by a bunch of lesbians?”
What’s the matter, is Google broken?
The Leg Lamp is a major award....
November 15th, 2010
10:20 pm
Doggone/GA
November 15th, 2010
10:19 pm
Google? I have Doggonel.
@@
November 15th, 2010
10:21 pm
Doggone:
We’re talking about children, not adults. They’re very impressionable.
Say some little black girl….7, 8 years old is in the classroom and an authority figure calls her the “N” word…..the rest of the class laughs because, it was, after all, an authority figure who used it. Therefore it’s O.K. to laugh. The child is humiliated.
Children suffer enough humiliation from their peers. A teacher shouldn’t join in the process.
Doggone/GA
November 15th, 2010
10:21 pm
“Google? I have Doggonel”
No, you don’t.
Doggone/GA
November 15th, 2010
10:24 pm
“Say some little black girl….7, 8 years old is in the classroom and an authority figure calls her the “N” word”
But nobody has said any teacher used that word IN THE CLASSROOM. And if that child is taught by her parents that the word has no meaning to her and if they have taught her how to react unemotionally, then there is no humiliation. And yes, children that young CAN be taught how to react to such things.
The Leg Lamp is a major award....
November 15th, 2010
10:27 pm
@@
November 15th, 2010
10:21 pm
So Doggone/GA is a racist? Who knew?
The Leg Lamp is a major award....
November 15th, 2010
10:28 pm
Doggone/GA
November 15th, 2010
10:21 pm
Slacker.
Doggone/GA
November 15th, 2010
10:28 pm
“Who knew?”
You certainly don’t.
Mick
November 15th, 2010
10:33 pm
@@
Hypothetical situation that you suggest would result in: Child telling parent, parent contacting principal, investigation with witnesses writing statements, district notified, teacher removed pending outcome. If allegations are true, teacher can be dismissed by school board and YES, it does happen to tenured teachers. What you are really looking for is a bad tenured teacher who keeps their nose clean but is an ineffective instructor – that’s the true problem and the hardest to get rid of. Believe it or not, the same problem exists in private schools because the bad teacher is a good friend of the principal and protected. Good parents that demand action are the key to rooting out the slackers…
@@
November 15th, 2010
10:37 pm
Doggone:
Do you recall an incident at Valley Traditional High School? A teacher called a student the “N” word. He was suspended for a short period of time….10, 30 days….something like that. Thing is, that same teacher had previously been suspended for telling a student to put a sign on another student’s back that said “I’m gay”.
He got five days suspension for that.
Never fired….just suspended.
Doesn’t send a very good message to kids, does it?
The Leg Lamp is a major award....
November 15th, 2010
10:40 pm
@@
November 15th, 2010
10:37 pm
Thank the teacher’s union for that.
Dave R.
November 15th, 2010
10:43 pm
““Dan Rather, didn’t he do something similar to making up a story?”
Not even remotely similar.”
Yeah, Rather actually WAS a journalist. O”Keefe isn’t.
Rather used known forged documents to try to derail a Presidential campaign. O’Keefe didn’t.
Not similar at all, Doggone. Worse.
@@
November 15th, 2010
10:45 pm
Mick:
I’m of the opinion that teachers should not be tenured.
Teacher tenure is effectively a permanent job contract for a college professor or, in some cases, a primary or secondary school teacher. Tenure is granted to individuals who have proven their teaching skills, conducted meaningful research, published papers, and helped their educational facilities by participating in committees or creating policies.
Once tenured, why continue improving on the teaching skills. The rest, to me, is irrelevant to the children/students.
I’m outta here.
jewcowboy
November 15th, 2010
10:46 pm
Pathetic attempt for attention…O’Keefe seems to dive into same the fame-whoredom Palin revels in…
@@
November 15th, 2010
10:48 pm
Leg Lamp:
You would think a teacher’s union would want the best and discard the rest. It’s not always the case.
Goodnight.
Scout
November 15th, 2010
10:49 pm
jewcowboy:
Refudiate that remark !
Hootinanny Yum Yum
November 15th, 2010
10:49 pm
Gotta watch what you say around some people. Ask McCrystal and his staff.
Mick
November 15th, 2010
10:52 pm
**I’m of the opinion that teachers should not be tenured**
I agree and most systems do not offer tenure, at least not in florida and I’m pretty sure georgia too.
Scout
November 15th, 2010
10:56 pm
I wonder where the conservative phantom will strike next?
TSA ?
Congress ?
NOW ?
The AJC ?
Keeps everyone on the toes !
jewcowboy
November 15th, 2010
11:04 pm
Opps! My bad…evidently “b@stardize” is considered evil on this blog…here was my response cleaned up…
Scout,
“Refudiate that remark !”
Mick
November 15th, 2010
11:05 pm
scout
Conservative phantom? Keeps everyone on their toes? That guy is a felonious cretin not worthy of anything but contempt. Surely, you can do better than that…
jewcowboy
November 15th, 2010
11:06 pm
Scout,
“I wonder where the conservative phantom will strike next?
TSA ?”
I’m considering stripping down to an acid yellow thong and black sock on my trip through TSA next week…I wonder how they would respond to same-sex aggressive pat down under those circumstances…
Scout
November 15th, 2010
11:18 pm
jewcowboy :
REFUDIATE !!!
HA ! I was fishing and guess who took the bait ?
“But in a release today, the New Oxford American Dictionary defended Palin’s use of the word. “From a strictly lexical interpretation of the different contexts in which Palin has used ‘refudiate,’ we have concluded that neither ‘refute’ nor ‘repudiate’ seems consistently precise, and that ‘refudiate’ more or less stands on its own, suggesting a general sense of ‘reject,’ ” the New Oxford American Dictionary said in a press release.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theticket/20101115/pl_yblog_theticket/almost-5-million-people-watched-sarah-palins-alaska
Scout
November 15th, 2010
11:21 pm
Headline: “In Afghanistan War, No Clear End in Sight”
“When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.”
Rudyard Kipling
Scout
November 15th, 2010
11:24 pm
Headline: “Karzai Ruffles Feathers Again, but U.S. Balks at Call to End Raids”
“Afghan President Hamid Karzai is once again causing headaches for U.S. and NATO commanders, this time demanding the U.S. reduce its military presence and stop conducting night raids against the Taliban — demands that Gen. Petraeus fears could harm the war effort.”
“And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, with the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear: ‘A fool lies here who tried to hustle the East.’ ”
Rudyard Kipling
Adam
November 15th, 2010
11:32 pm
Why are we continually posting links to other stories in this thread?
Fang1944
November 15th, 2010
11:34 pm
Does everybody have to always watch every word he or she says even in a bar?
Adam
November 15th, 2010
11:34 pm
Also it does not appear, Jay, that you have fixed the Shirley Sherrod part of your post on the main page, just when someone clicks the link do they see it crossed out.
Adam
November 15th, 2010
11:34 pm
Fang: my thoughts exactly
Scout
November 16th, 2010
12:05 am
Adam:
Because this thread is boring and it has been beat to death on the first page.
Nothing to see here folks. Let’s move along.
Scout
November 16th, 2010
12:06 am
Excuse me: “beaten”
USinUK
November 16th, 2010
6:48 am
oh, hurrah!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11765422
good for them.
@@
November 16th, 2010
7:11 am
The royal commenter?
@@
November 16th, 2010
7:15 am
Oops!
Make that “Royal Commentator”.
I think this is going to be a very, very good and successful marriage. And I think this will take the monarchy through well into the 21st Century”
bob
November 16th, 2010
7:29 am
this guy could be a top dog in the michael moore film production crew.
paleo-neo-Carlinist
November 16th, 2010
7:35 am
maybe some day organizations like the NJ teachers union will simply tell losers like O’Keefe; “thanks for your interest in NJ, we’ll take it from here.” I am not fan of the teachers union in NJ, nor am I a fan of partisan political hacks. it seems to me the NJEA/Passaic Bd of Ed missed a “teachable moment” here. why not meet with teacher (in private), advise her to be more careful, and warn her against errors in judgments when encountered by strangers in a bar; as opposed to regulating her First Amendment right to use words within the context of a discussion. it’s just a word, folks, and it is an important word when one considers American History. let’s be honest, it’s not like she said; “I work with retatards” – but then again, “retards rights” isn’t on anyone’s political platform.
J Moore
November 16th, 2010
7:52 am
I think the “u” word is much worse than the “n” word.
The sacrosanct N word.
November 16th, 2010
7:56 am
America: Isn’t it time we de-trigger the n-word. That would be bigger of us all. The n-word is an itch that Uncle Sam can’t quite scratch, almost as though his balls had been bitten by a chigger. I just can’t figure it. The power of one word is so great that a person can get his fifteen minutes by tricking a barfly, who had obviously had one too many jiggers of gin, into saying it? The rigors of modern life, eh?
JFK said it best: make change in the world. Move forward with great vigor. (thumbs up clenched fist gesture here).
Scooter (the Original)
November 16th, 2010
8:15 am
Doesn’t discredit the remainder of “Teachers Unions Gone Wild” and it is par for the political course. Unless of course, you don’t think liberal activists haven’t been doing the same thing for decades.
Say What?
November 16th, 2010
8:41 am
Personally, I only have one problem with the ‘N’ word is the double standard. If the ‘N’ society (listening Chris Rock?) can say it 45 times in a 30 minute stand-up routine, and the ‘N’ society laughs so hard they cry, than the non-N society (us honkeys) should be able to use it as well. Get rid of the PC culture – it isn’t helping anyone.
lynnie gal
November 16th, 2010
9:04 am
It’s James O’Keefe who has gone wild. He’s been in the news recently trying to lure a CNN reporter on a boat to film her with sex toys. He was charged with a felony trying to install a phone mic in the office of a senator, Mary Landreu, wearing a disguise as a telephone repairman. It appears he likes to target women, and choses his victims by first trying to lure them into sexual traps and taping them. He is a sexual/political stalker and predator.
Adam
November 16th, 2010
9:19 am
Any attempt to “de-trigger” the N word is actually a bad idea, and it is not something that should be done by “we” or “us.” If you want this to change you will have to wait for minority groups to change it. The majority changing it for the minority is the exact WRONG direction to take.
georgedawg
November 16th, 2010
9:29 am
Racism is disgraceful. Going in either direction. At some point, we should realize that we’re all Americans and that the far left and right, whom most of us don’t agree with, should not control our society. What Acorn was doing was voter fraud. I’m glad it was exposed and yet , in this instance,. I agree with Jay.
We have serious challenges in this country and to overcome them we need to come together and stop the excessive partanship. For instance, as a business owner, much like most businesses, I want Obama care repealed. The last thing we need is the gov’t bureacracy between the Doctor and patient. I mean do any of you pay payroll taxes, it’s maddening dealing with the gov’t. However, and my point, I’d like to see everyone that can’t afford healthcare have access to dignified, efficiently provided free care. We need tort reform, interstate competitition and yes we do need to realize that we can’t afford the level of health care that is now available. Just because John Glenn went to the moon that doesn’t mean we all get to go.
God, please provide us a leader that unites us in our common mission as Americans. Someone who is everyone’s president and who can overcome the hatred on the far left and right!
MadMadWorld
November 16th, 2010
9:53 am
Not to be mean. How do you stop a careening van by throwing yourself in front of it?
Greg
November 16th, 2010
10:17 am
Not a liberal here (donating member of the libertarian party), but would you want to be unknowingly taped and then later ambushed outside your residence by camera toting morons about a story you told in a bar. Oh no, I bs’ed some in bar when I was flirting. Big whoop. When did this type of “filmmaking” become acceptable. It isn’t right when Michael Moore does this type of film work and it isn’t right when a “conservative” does it.
Matti
November 16th, 2010
12:11 pm
What a SLEAZOID! Somebody needs to teach this narcissistic freak some manners.
bleary
November 16th, 2010
12:54 pm
Why don’t we let Mr O’Keefe take Ms Ploshnik’s place in the classroom for special needs children? We need more special ed teachers than we need wanna be newsmen.
ODDOWL
November 16th, 2010
3:19 pm
The pimp James “magic wand” O’keefe is a criminal element. He should be in prison. I guess he have the same teflon coating that most White drug dealers have. They always slip through the cracks in the criminal justice system. Now i turn my attention to fat boy Christ Christie, New Jersey’s version of Il-duce. He’s an arrogant pompous arse clown. Someone need to knock him off his sway back high horse.
ODDOWL
November 16th, 2010
3:53 pm
ACORN did not commit voter fraud. The organization was innocent of all charges. If ACORN had commit voter fraud, they would have been charged by the Justice dept. James “magic wand” O’keefe and the anti democratic Republicans targeted ACORN because of their get out the vote operation. ACORN registered million of voters and made sure they voted on election day. This is why the Republicans attack them. Racist Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate voted to strip ACORN of the Federal money they received even though they knew that ACORN was innocent of all charges. The Republican anti vote operation against African-Americans and other Minorities were apparently successful. Naive people cling to the words on the surface but they’re unable to read between the lines and discover the hidden meaning. Then they contract a severe case of diarrhea of the mouth without engaging the brain and spew their ignorance all over the pages of the blog sites.
GregB
November 16th, 2010
10:29 pm
Well, it is nice to see a secret army of cons(Conservative) brownshirts who are targeting common working folk for political destruction.
Looking forward to the GOP show trials and maybe some hangings too.
Linda Tripp should be appointed by the GOP Congress as Director of Domestic Snooping.
Governor Douchebag Strikes Again! | The Constant Linguist
November 16th, 2010
11:20 pm
[...] that James O’Keefe. The same waste of Creation who ruined Shirley Sherrod’s career and [...]
Michael
November 17th, 2010
4:42 am
This Okeefe is the slimiest of slimeballs, and makes sense, since he is a conservative. He makes stuff up to fit his narrow conservative agenda, and all you brainless neocons out there
treat this as mana from heaven., You wouldn;t know truth if it came up and bit you.Acorn was totally made up, this is totally made up, what breitbart did with shirley sherrod was totally made up, but in congress there is braindead republicans passing laws against acorn.This whole democracy has gone to h word in a handbasket .
timb
November 17th, 2010
1:54 pm
“Some union thug teacher gets caught flouting her job security; thumbing her nose at those in the private sector who pay her salary.”
That may be the dumbest thing ever written on the Internet….and the Internet has Andrew Breitbart on it, so lots of mind-numbingly stupid things get said on it.