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Teacher gets away with shocking behavior Journalists investigate Matef Harmachis and Santa Barbara Unified School District
Editor’s note: This is the first story in a series. This article originally appeared in the Daily Wire, which publishes its articles at dailywire.com. Luke Rosiak is an investigative journalist for The Daily Wire. By Luke Rosiak and Kenny Xu The Daily Wire
A California high school teacher who remained an influential and radical leftist education activist after being
fired for allegedly groping and biting a student had a nearly two-decade record of shocking classroom behavior but stayed on the payroll thanks to a powerful teachers union. Matef Harmachis, who was fired by the Santa Barbara Unified School District in 2020 after he was convicted in 2017 of battery for an incident involving a student, had been disciplined some 16 years earlier for grabbing a boy who refused to turn his pro-Israel shirt inside out.
The district put him on paid leave, then transferred him to another school. Within weeks of starting there, he was accused of threatening another student. “I’ll knock your dumb a** out,” Mr. Harmachis told the student, according to a court opinion. The district responded by putting Mr. Harmachis on paid leave again and mounting a subsequent investigation that turned up numerous additional allegations, including that Mr. Harmachis made inappropriate sexual remarks
toward students. Those allegations included that he hugged a girl, told a girl to “rub her body all over his,” and said, “It’s okay if you come naked to class.” “Just because you’re good in bed doesn’t mean you can eat in class,” Mr. Harmachis allegedly told one girl in class. The district moved to fire Mr. Harmachis in 2005, with thensuperintendent Brian Sarvis declaring that his presence was “detrimental to students” and that the district “cannot
Abortion rights rally held in De la Guerra Plaza
have Matef teaching high school students.” Mr. Harmachis was suspended with pay for nearly five years as the California Teachers Association funded a legal battle to save his job. His salary rose to $60,000 during the years he was paid to stay home. The Commission of Professional Competence found that Mr. Harmachis showed “unfitness to teach in some respects,” but that the “conduct does not show such unfitness to teach as Please see TEACHER on A4
$230M settlement reached in 2015 SB oil spill lawsuit By KATHERINE ZEHNDER NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
A settlement has finally been reached in the seven year-lawsuit regarding the 2015 Santa Barbara oil spill. Plains All American Pipeline has agreed to pay $230 million to fishers, fish processors and shoreline property residents who are members of two classes in a class-action lawsuit filed against the company. The lawsuit was filed after a corroded pipeline spilled an estimated 15,000 barrels of crude oil into the Pacific Ocean in 2015. The class members are represented by Cappello & Noël
Hundreds of people showed up for an abortion rights rally at De La Guerra Plaza in Santa Barbara on Saturday.
By KATHERINE ZEHNDER NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
About 2,500 people rallied at De la Guerra Plaza on Saturday in support of abortion
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access and reproductive freedom during a rally hosted by Planned Parenthood and the Santa Barbara County Democratic Party from noon to 3 p.m. The rally was held in response to a leaked
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KENNETH SONG / NEWS-PRESS FILE
A man shovels up oil on a section of beach one mile east of Refugio Beach in 2015.
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Supreme Court draft opinion which was reported by Politico on May 2. The leaked draft indicated that the Supreme Court plans on voting to overturn Roe v. Wade. Please see RALLY on A5
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LLP, Lieff Cabraser LLP, Keller Rohrback LLP and Audet & Partners. 15,000 barrels of oil is equivalent to approximately 630,000 gallons. An expert in liquid mechanics for Cappello & Noël LLP calculated that 10,750 of the 15,000 barrels hit the water, or about 451,000 of 630,000 gallons. “The spill started on land above the beach and above the freeway, it pooled there, part remained and most of it then ran into a culvert downhill to the Refugio Beach and ocean. Our expert used Uniform Command oil sampling up and down the coast, all the way Please see SETTLEMENT on A6
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