Schools’ Chief of Burbank Accused of Racial Bias : Education: Ex-employee files complaint that a memo on sexual harassment unfairly singled out Armenians and Mexicans.

A former Burbank Adult School employee has accused the district superintendent of racial bias against Mexicans and Armenians, but the school board dismissed the complaint as overblown and said the superintendent has treated immigrant students with sensitivity.

The complaint, filed with the school board by former senior custodian James Carlile, was based on a 2-year-old memo in which Supt. Arthur Pierce asked Burbank Police Chief David Newsham to assign a male bilingual police officer to meet with Mexican and Armenian students in a English as a Second Language class to talk “quite candidly” about sexual harassment.

“Some of these students come from cultures which condone behaviors toward members of the opposite sex while such behaviors are not acceptable in the United States,” the memo said.

The memo did not specify particular behavior but said that a Glendale police officer could be used to deal with the Armenian students while a Burbank police officer would be needed for Spanish speaking students.

“This letter is a revealing look at how Anglo Civic leaders in Burbank talk to each other about ethnics, and express their theories and cultural tendencies and predilections, when they think nobody is looking,” said Carlile in a written complaint to the school board.

School board members, saying the memo had been taken out of context, unanimously voted Thursday night to take no action against Pierce, who had insisted on having the hearing in open session.

“I would simply say to the board I stand by the letter as it is written, with the exception of a spelling error,” Pierce told the board. The hearing was televised at the end of the regular school board meeting in a nearly empty Burbank City Council chamber.

Carlile said he received the memo accidentally when it was misfiled into his mailbox. He said he kept quiet about it, fearing that raising the issue would affect his job. He has been unemployed since leaving the school last year in an unrelated dispute.

“This is what prejudice is all about,” Carlile said Friday, adding that the request for a police officer was unfair and could have intimidated students. Carlile, whose paternal heritage is Latino, disputed the claim that male students sexually harass women.

Pierce said he did not know if the Police Department complied with his request and sent an officer to adult school classes. On Thursday night, school board members defended the superintendent.

“Since I’ve been elected, Dr. Pierce has shown me that he is so protective of special education and bilingual students,” said board member Denise Lioy Wilcox, who joined the board in May.

“Dr. Pierce has demonstrated in the past, from a community perspective, a very liberal side,” board member Robert Dunivant said.

“I also think that anybody who reads the letter can read it in a number of ways,” said William S. Abbey, board vice president. “Dr. Pierce is merely pointing out the obvious. I don’t find it objectionable. I find it a recognition of reality.”

Pierce also defended the memo. “Yes, I believe there are culturally reflected differences,” he said Friday afternoon. “There certainly are differences between countries and regions of countries.”