For the past 40 years, the United Nations has celebrated Oct. 5 as World Teachers' Day. This year it falls on a Saturday, so throughout the week, The Conversation will be tipping its hat to local teachers.
We start with a nod to Sister James at Damien Memorial School. As an elementary school teacher, she helped former FBI agent and educator Arnold Laanui along the path to a long career with the federal agency.
"She taught me some really key things that really laid a foundation for a career in the justice field, which was, one, paying attention," Laanui said.
He honed his skills as an investigator, working around the world in places like Kenya, Lebanon and Indonesia.
"As the years and decades went by, I always paid an annual visit with her, sometimes in person on campus, but if I was far away, I'd get a card, stick it in the mail and make sure that it would kind of get out to her. But yeah, always thought about her, and was always just very, very grateful for how she launched more than a career — she really launched a vocation," Laanui said.
Laanui, a 1986 Damien graduate, returned to his alma mater as the new president in July 2022. He left after he was asked to step down earlier this year following a scandal that shook the school community to its core. He then filed a whistleblower lawsuit alleging wrongful termination for flagging law violations in the football program.
"The key principle that's kind of being violated is that in order to give illicit scholarships, scholarships that are prohibited by the ILH, you literally have to step over families in great financial crisis and ignore every female student in order to do that," he said.
His legal challenge, which alleges that the school and alumni association put the school's tax status in jeopardy because of Title IX violations, fraud, embezzlement, and a sex scandal involving a minor, is currently in mediation.
When the lawsuit was filed, the school released a statement saying that it was taking the charges seriously and that student safety and education were its highest priority.
"Unfortunately it was somewhat of a public disappointment, of course, to kind of leave Damien, certainly prematurely. But the matter certainly, I believe, turned over to the right legal team, and things will work out," Laanui told HPR.
He said it was something Sister James told his elementary school class that stuck with him: “Keep your noses clean because you never know when the FBI is going to come calling.”
"She's still with us, but aging, of course, and kind of bedridden these days," he said. "It's now my mission to kind of carry those footsteps a little bit forward and carry her cross a little bit more forward to do God's work in everything I try to do."
This interview aired on The Conversation on Sept. 30, 2024. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1.
