GREENWICH, Conn. — Attorney General William Tong concluded, after a year-long investigation, that there is no evidence that a former employee of Greenwich Public Schools had been exhibiting discriminatory employment practices.
Tong's office investigated former assistant principal of Cos Cob School Jeremy Boland after a video from Project Veritas went viral last September. The video included clips of Boland that showed he "claimed to discriminate in hiring, using age and Catholic faith as a proxy for politics and ideology," but the attorney general's investigation found no evidence that Boland practiced what appeared to be preached in the video.
“The Office of the Attorney General stands ready to protect the civil rights of Connecticut residents. We will respond to patterns and practices of civil rights violations with investigations and litigation wherever warranted. We find no evidence of actionable violations here,” Attorney General William Tong said in a letter to the school district regarding the investigation.
A letter informing the school district of the investigation's conclusion can be read here.
The Office of the Attorney General's investigation involved reviewing 61,105 pages of documents from Greenwich Public Schools and conducting interviews with 32 people, ranging from Greenwich Public School admins and teachers to teacher applicants to witnesses.
The investigation concluded that for the 25 hires Boland was involved with, he never had independent authority during any of the processes and that he had never asked any questions or made decisions that were deemed inappropriate or biased.
Boland thought he was meeting with a woman he met on a dating app when multiple hidden cameras were placed for their conversation, which was turned into a 12-minute video from the non-profit Project Veritas that went viral.
“So then what do you do with the Catholics? If you find out someone is Catholic, then what?” asked the undercover Project Veritas questioner in the video.
“You don’t hire them,” Boland replied.
Boland admitted to investigators that what he said in the video "accurately represents his words," and that both he and Tong's office consider those reported comments "wrong and offensive." Boland told investigators he was making those comments to "curry favor" with the woman he was speaking to, and he denied that he illegally or inappropriately discriminated against applicants and workers.
Project Veritas did not provide extra video that was not seen in the 12-minute video or contact information for the woman Boland was talking to for the investigation, Tong's office said.
Boland was placed on leave on Aug. 31, 2022, around the same time the video started going viral, and he resigned on June 30, 2023.
An independent investigation the Town of Greenwich launched also did not find evidence of discrimination.
Investigations were also launched by the town Board of Education and the State Department of Education.
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