State Appeals Court upholds denial of teaching license for ex-officer who killed Philando Castile

The Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld the decision of the state’s teacher licensing board to deny ex-officer Jeronimo Yanez’s application to become a substitute teacher.

In November 2022, the appellate court found that the Minnesota Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board inappropriately denied a teaching license to Yanez, a former St. Anthony police officer who fatally shot Philando Castile during a 2016 traffic stop that ignited dayslong protests and a high-profile manslaughter trial. Yanez was acquitted in the killing of Castile, a cafeteria supervisor in the St. Paul school district.

The board was ordered to reconsider Yanez’s application, but members reached the same conclusion: Yanez is unfit to teach in Minnesota public schools. Appellate judges in a unanimous decision issued Monday said it discerns no basis “for disturbing the board’s determination.”

Yanez’s attorney, Robert Fowler, said in a statement to the Star Tribune that the board’s original decision “was completely biased and political.” He said Yanez continues to teach at a private Catholic school “because he is a good teacher.”

“[T]he teaching licensing board simply has no expertise on police issues to draw any conclusions as to why my client couldn’t teach, especially since he’s actually been a good teacher for years now,” Fowler said. “... Unfortunately, the court was not willing to take up these difficult political issues and instead just rubber-stamped the agency’s decision.”

Fowler said this case “is further proof that issues surrounding police are not able to be decided in a fair and unbiased manner in Minnesota.”

As directed by the court, the board received extensive evidence and testimony from experts in the fields of education and policing to weigh on eight factors.

“Three factors significantly support denying Yanez’s application: the likelihood that Yanez’s conduct may adversely affect students or fellow teachers given the deep impact of Castile’s death; the degree of anticipated adversity and resulting threats to the emotional and social well-being of the students with Yanez present in the classroom; and the extenuating or aggravating circumstances surrounding the conduct, which resulted in world-wide notoriety of the killing and demonstration of ‘extremely poor judgement’ by Yanez,” the ruling stated.

Yanez argued on appeal that the board should not consider whether his conduct as a police officer violated moral standards required of teaching. He said the board should look at his positive performance review earned while teaching at the private school, where the principal supported Yanez’s substitute teaching application despite awareness of the fatal shooting.

However, the appellate court said such limiting parameters to not consider all previous employment experience would depart from customary hiring practices.

Joseph Gothard, superintendent of St. Paul Public Schools, whom Yanez argued was biased against him, opined that Yanez prejudged Castile and took his life in a manner that endangered others.

Castile’s girlfriend was in the passenger seat, livestreaming the aftermath on Facebook, and her then-4-year-old daughter sat in the backseat. Yanez faced additional charges for endangering them when he fired his service weapon seven times into the vehicle.

Gothard said the prejudgments of Yanez, who is Latino, of Castile, who is Black, indicated “racial bias, microaggressions, and negativity bias that are detrimental to students, especially students of color,” the court stated.

It concluded that the superintendent “questioned Yanez’s ability to meet the ethical demands for a diverse student population and opined that Yanez’s presence as a teacher in Minnesota classrooms poses a risk of retraumatizing students, staff and families.”