Steele v. Board of Education

The issues raised on these four appeals involve the hard-earned seniority rights of literally thousands of educators in New York City and, indeed, throughout the State.1 In my view, it would be both unwise and unfair to permit the admittedly severe exigencies occasioned by New York City’s present financial crisis to outweigh the clear statutory protections of subdivision 3 of section 2585 of the Education Law, designed as it was to further both the integrity of our school systems and the rights of those who work in them. In fact, the economic retrenchment which the abolition of the positions…