In most repressive societies people who speak against power structures are often punished in some manner. History describes how various methods to silence arbiters are swift and brutal. Life on the Connecticut Juvenile Training School plantation for employees is not idyllic in any sense. For many employees trying to address concerns to management makes them targets; thus, there seems to be fewer and fewer arbiters of truth on the CJTS plantation.
Over the course of six years CJTS has denied every allegation of racism or bias by employees; attempts to present petitions to management failed miserably. Cornell Lewis and four CJTS employees launched a class action lawsuit at DCF / CJTS which has been ignored by mostly white administrators. It is indeed a sad commentary when employees cannot speak truth to power at state run agencies professing to be looking out for the well being of youth. However DCF / CJTS are merely imitating what has gone on in America for hundreds of years; anyone declaring a modicum of truth is silenced “by any means necessary.” CJTS used policy and procedure to fire people they felt threatened by; and recently blamed front line employees of neglecting residents in a memo- in order to cover for incompetent management.
It is worth noting that oppressors never fully want to recognize people held in contempt. Needless to say such an attitude is a primary reason for the distasteful way in which CJTS employees are treated. In America we are fond of saying " the truth will eventually win." Perhaps it will, but not on the CJTS plantation.
" I am convinced that the world is not a mere bog in which men and women trample themselves
in the mire and die." --Charles A. Beard
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