The California judge who got ousted from the bench in a recall after he handed out a light sentence to a Stanford University student convicted of sexual assault is now out of yet another job, that of high school girls tennis coach.
Former Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky was hired at the start of the school year to coach girls junior varsity tennis at Lynbrook High School in San Jose, Calif., according to the San Francisco Chronicle. But after word got out, and complaints came in, about who the new tennis coach was, the district let him go.
The school district said that before the complaints it received, it was unaware of Persky’s history, as the Chronicle explains:
Rachel Zlotziver, coordinator of communications at the Fremont Union High School District, said the high school was initially unaware of Perksy’s role in the controversial Brock Turner case when they hired him.
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Persky came under fire for sentencing Turner, a former Stanford University swimmer, to six months in county jail for sexually assaulting Chanel Miller in January 2015 at a fraternity party. Persky said he considered the “severe impact” a long prison sentence would have on Turner’s life.
Widespread outrage over Persky’s leniency led to his being the first California judge in more than 85 years to be recalled, and he lost his post on the bench last year, the Los Angeles Times reports.
However, without knowing this background, the district hired Persky after he applied for the job this summer and was found to meet all of the district’s requirements.
“He applied for the open coaching position over the summer and successfully completed all of the district’s hiring requirements before starting as a coach, including a fingerprint background check,” Zlotziver said, according to the Chronicle. “He was a qualified applicant for this position, having attended several tennis coaching clinics for youth and holds a high rating from the United States Tennis Association.”
The district decided to sever ties with Persky, per the Times, “after criticism and an online petition spurred by students, parents and alumni from Lynbrook High School.”
It was just last week that Chanel Miller came forward to identify herself publicly in advance of a memoir she’s written that will be released at the end of the month.
Her then-anonymous and powerfully written victim’s statement prior to Persky’s sentencing of Turner harshly condemned what Turner had done to her and went viral.