Opinion ID: 782715
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Membership in NAMBLA Becomes Public

Text: 10 Melzer's membership in NAMBLA first came to the Board's attention in 1984-1985 via an anonymous letter received by the school's then principal. The Board's Office of the Inspector General conducted an interview with plaintiff on March 29, 1985, during which Melzer declined to confirm or deny whether he was a member of NAMBLA. No administrative action was taken at that time. The investigation was reopened in May 1992 by the newly created Office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation for the New York City School District (Commissioner of Investigation), an investigative body created to succeed the Office of the Inspector General. 11 During the course of the reopened investigation in March 1993, a local television station aired a three-part news story on public school teachers who were members of NAMBLA. The story was broadcast on WNBC-TV Channel 4 in New York on March 2, 3, and 5, 1993. It featured a secretly recorded video of a NAMBLA meeting at which Melzer could be seen advising a non-tenured employee of the Board to keep his Association membership secret until he acquired tenure. The story also featured interviews with students, as well as an attempted interview with Melzer himself. Other news media soon picked up the story and further disseminated the fact that Melzer, a teacher at Bronx Science, was a NAMBLA member.