UK: Tribunal awards gay primary school teacher, 42, nearly £700,000 after he was wrongly sacked for threesome with two 17-year-olds he met on dating app Grindr

Homosexual activity is no longer illegal

A gay primary school head, 42, who was wrongly sacked after he hooked up with two 17-year-old boys he met on Grindr has been awarded nearly £700,000 by a tribunal.

Matthew Aplin, 42, had a threesome with the two teens at his home in August 2015 after meeting them on Grindr - the gay dating app aimed at adults aged 17 and above.

Mr Aplin, who was a teacher for 19 years, had been the head of Tywyn Primary School in Sandfields, West Glamorgan and made no secret of his sexuality.

But while police and local authority bosses decided no criminal offence had been committed, the school governors decided to sack him.

Mr Aplin challenged their decision before resigning, eventually mounting an employment tribunal claiming unfair dismissal and sexual orientation discrimination.

He argued that his relationship with the two 17-year-olds was lawful and part of his private life, and that the management of the case had been 'biased and homophobic'.

He won but the decision was appealed by the school at the Employment Appeals Tribunal who upheld the original decision in March this year.

They found that he would have been treated differently if he was a heterosexual male having sex with two teenage girls, or a woman with two teenage boys.

The tribunal has now ordered the Governing Body of Tywyn Primary School to pay the sacked headteacher more than £696,000, following a hearing in Cardiff last month.

The ruling stated that Mr Aplin was 'dedicated to working in the education sector and someone who was not only ambitious but effectively so.'

However he was unable to return to work after being sacked, because all the appropriate jobs advertised were administered by the same Local Education Authority (LEA) that was overseeing his discrimination claim.

The tribunal therefore concluded that Mr Aplin had been unable to mitigate the loss he suffered as a result of his sacking, ruling that he 'should be compensated for all losses to date less the sums earned and benefits received.'

Despite forcing the school to pay nearly £700,000, the tribunal knocked at least 20 per cent off the bill - because Mr Aplin could have been fairly dismissed without any discrimination.

He had claimed the right to a private life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

He was awarded £696,255.65 including tax which before a 20 per cent reduction included £20,000 injury to feelings, £286,424.37 pension loss and £208,029.33 in past and future loss of earnings.

The panel concluded: 'Headteachers have authority over children. If headteachers have sexual relationships with children it cannot be seen, without exploration of evidence, whether that authority is misused.

'It is necessary therefore to restrict the occasions when such sexual relationships arise so that confidence that headteachers will not exploit that authority can be maintained.

'Therefore, we consider that it is possible to conclude that in the circumstances of this case the claimant could have been disciplined for his admitted conduct.

'However, a fair process would require the respondent to consider whether the claimant was aware that the individuals were 17 years of age.

'Further it would have to consider what the real risk of the issues becoming public were and therefore what the real potential for reputational damage was.'

When it first sat in September 2017, the tribunal heavily criticised the school's investigating officer - who worked for Neath Port Talbot Council - for discriminating against Mr Aplin, on the basis that he was gay.

The officer was found to have approached the case on the basis that Mr Aplin could be a danger to children, and that he produced a report 'laden with judgements and conclusions which were hostile to Mr Aplin', rather than being objective and factual.       

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Would you be better off enrolling at pharmacy school or Harvard University?

If you’re looking for a long-term return on investment, a new study suggests that attending the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, the Longwood-area pharmacy school, may be a better option. MCPHS ranked number three in a study of colleges based on the economic value they’re likely to provide their students over 40 years.

The report, by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce, was released Thursday and included data on 4,500 colleges and universities across the country.

Students who attend MCPHS could on average see a net economic gain — after paying off their college debt — of $2.4 million after 40 years. Harvard ranked eighth, with an economic gain of nearly $2 million. Two other area colleges, MIT (fourth), with an economic gain of $2.3 million, and Babson College (seventh), with about $2 million in net income gain, helped round out the top 10 list.

In fact, many of the top 10 colleges on the list specialize in certain fields: The top three are pharmacy schools, and two maritime academies that help students prepare to work on ships rank among the best long-term financial investments.

“The variation is what stuns me,” said Anthony P. Carnevale, the study’s lead author and director. “It is the tip of the iceberg on real transparency in higher education.”

The study aims to shed light on the hotly debated question of whether college is worth the cost and rank how well institutions do in helping students improve their earning potential. The Georgetown study is based on data submitted by colleges to the federal government. The government, through the College Scorecard, reports earnings of graduates at individual colleges 10 years after they earn their degree. Using that data, the Georgetown study for the first time attempts to estimate future earnings 40 years out.

At a time when the rising cost of college and the ballooning amount of student loan debt has worried families, policy makers, and young students about whether college is worth the financial risk, the Georgetown report offers some positive news for higher education.

“I will probably share this report with one or two people,” said Stephen Spinelli, the president of Babson College. “People are questioning deeply the value position. This says the value proposition is robust.”

Babson, a business school that focuses on entrepreneurship, counts the cofounder of Home Depot and the former chief executive of PepsiCo among its graduates. The college attracts students who are interested in starting businesses and, after graduating, many land in leadership positions at their organizations, explaining Babson’s ranking at the top of Georgetown’s study.

But not all students want to become pharmacists, launch companies, become engineers, or spend their career at sea, working on a ship.

Earning a college degree is a “worthwhile investment,” according to the report, but how good an investment varies significantly depending on the type of institution, the training it offers, and the career choices of graduates.

“It is important to discuss this information with families when they embark on the college search and funding process,” said Todd Weaver, a private counselor with Strategies for College Inc., a Norwood-based company.

The study shows that “name brand” institutions aren’t always the best option for students, Weaver said.

In the short term, over a 10-year period, community colleges and certificate programs, particularly in nursing, provide the highest returns on investment, in part because students graduate with little debt and can move into the workforce.

Four-year institutions may initially cost more, but over a 40-year period their graduates also have higher economic gains, according to the report. Private four-year colleges on average have higher net returns, according to the report.

Over the course of 40 years, even after paying off higher amounts of debt, a private college graduate will reap a long-term net economic gain of $838,000, compared with $765,000 for graduates of public colleges, according to the report.

The best performing colleges in Georgetown’s ranking were four-year institutions with low student-debt levels that offered degrees that led to high paying jobs, including Harvard, Stanford University, and the Maine Maritime Academy.

Theological institutions, beauty schools, and colleges that focus on music and the arts ranked low in economic gains for their graduates.

In Massachusetts, Berklee College of Music graduates had an economic gain of $456,000 in a 40-year period, placing it below some of the state’s community colleges for long-term earning potential.

Still, education experts and Carnevale warn that families and students should look at more than this ranking to determine whether a college is right for them. Students should talk to guidance counselors and look at the institution’s graduation rates, how long it takes students to earn their degree, and how many students default on their loans.

In some cases, the schools that do well in Georgetown’s rankings are also drawing students who are likely to succeed, no matter what school they attend, said Phillip Levine, a Wellesley economics professor who focuses on college affordability.

Students who can get accepted by MIT are likely to earn more after graduation regardless of whether they attend MIT, Levine said.

“How do you know what the school is actually doing compared to the student’s individual attributes?” Levine said. “That’s a harder issue.”

There may be colleges that leave their graduates weighed down with debt and a degree that does them little economic good, but for the most part, a college education remains a good investment, Levine said.

“Yes, college is worth it. College is even more worth it for low-income kids,” he said. “Community colleges show positive returns, going to a lower-level state school shows a positive return, elite schools show a positive return.”

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Admissions Lawsuit: Harvard’s Ahead, but It’s Not Over

Federal judge Allison D. Burroughs has issued a 120-page ruling saying that Harvard University did not discriminate against Asian-American students, as alleged by Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), led by Edward Blum. Admitting that Harvard’s admission process is “not perfect,” she said that there is “no evidence of any racial animus whatsoever.”

From the beginning of this highly visible lawsuit, everyone expected this slugging contest to go several rounds, ending up in the Supreme Court. Harvard had a hometown advantage: the case was being held on home turf, led by a single liberal judge appointed by President Barack Obama who previously has butted heads with those on the right: she stopped a President Trump executive order designed to temporarily block the admission of immigrants and refugees from countries with predominantly Islamic populations. The odds are pretty good a liberal judge ruling a short distance from the Harvard campus would favor Harvard. Moreover, Judge Burroughs is a big fan of affirmative action, proclaiming, “race-conscious admissions programs … have an important place in society and help ensure…colleges and universities…offer a diverse atmosphere that fosters learning…”

Edward Blum was disappointed but, knowing him as I do (and I know him well: I once shared an office with him), I’m sure he is gearing up for Round Two in the First Circuit Court of Appeals. There is a lot of statistical evidence supportive of the SFFA position. For example, an internal Harvard study a few years ago suggested that if strictly academic criteria were used, some 43.04% of those admitted to Harvard would be Asian-Americans, over double the then-actual figure of 18.66%. The failure of the proportion to grow significantly over time also appears suspicious, since the Asian-American share of the population is growing. To me, Harvard’s admissions standards come close to saying, “Asian-Americans typically do well in the classroom, but they tend to be nerds, and we don’t want to be a university of nerds. Classroom learning is fine—but college is partly an excuse to bring kids together to socialize, a gap period before they begin life in the Real World.” Still, Judge Burroughs proclaims, ‘Harvard does not have any racial quotas.’

Edward Blum is indefatigable, but this decision is still a setback for SFFA. My own guess is that the odds of SFFA ultimately prevailing in whole or in part have fallen from 65% to 50%. It could go either way. Blum is also not confining the battle to one front. He is back at his reoccurring attacks on his alma mater, the University of Texas. But his major non-Harvard effort now is against the University of North Carolina. UNC is selective but not as selective as Harvard, and it is a public institution that by law can only take 18% of its undergraduate students from out of state. Legacy admissions, albeit a tangential factor in the Harvard case, is probably not as important at UNC.

Both Harvard and UNC use what they call “holistic” admissions. Objective, easily measurable factual evidence—SAT scores, high school grades and class ranks—play a role but are supplemented and sometimes trumped by personal opinions of admissions officers and committees. Thus athletes get preference over ace musicians on average, the president of the high school student council is considered a better applicant than a wunderkind member of the chess club and, yes, blacks are preferred over Asians. Some schools, notably Cal Tech, reportedly disdain the holistic approach in favor of evaluations based predominantly on quantitatively measurable variables emphasizing academic achievement and promise. It was the move away from the “holistic” approach of the first half of the 20th century that led to the ascendancy of the SAT and, later, ACT tests.

The sordidness of highly selective admissions came out in evidence revealed in the trial proceedings. Money does talk—Varsity Blues was far from the first admissions scandal. Multi-million-dollar actual or potential donor applications received special attention. Can you bribe your way into Harvard? As I read the evidence: Only rarely, if the bribe is big enough (six digit bribes don’t work). The less prestigious the school, the smaller the necessary bribe.

In the final analysis, the substitution of Supreme Court justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh for Justices Scalia and Kennedy may have more to say about the final outcome than anything else.

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